RIM Solidifies Ties to Chinese Consumer Market

From DailyTech: Research In Motion (RIM) has solidified efforts to gain a foothold in mainland China, recently agreeing to a deal with a Hong Kong IT company, as it attempts to crack into a market that has more than 600 million potential customers.

The company has teamed up with Digital China Holdings to distribute the phone, and also announced it will work with Lenovo to help promote BlackBerry smartphones.

"They need to widen the appeal of the BlackBerry and target the consumer market in addition to corporates," said Sandy Shen, Gartner mobile phone analyst, in a briefing with Bloomberg.

RIM's BlackBerry line of smartphones have been available in China for a few years, but RIM hasn't seen significant marketshare growth. The company controls less than 1 percent of the Chinese market, with Apple and other foreign handset manufacturers also struggling.

Along with more high-profile partnerships and marketing campaigns, RIM also plans to lower the price of its BlackBerry plans, which reportedly remain high. RIM Co-CEO Jim Balsillie also outlined plans to invest in research and development in China, while the company plans to use the Chinese-made Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TDSCDMA) mobile technology.

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