Blackberry aims at mass market

Johannesburg - Canadian cellular group Research In Motion (Rim) on Wednesday launched the new Blackberry 8520 smartphone in South Africa. Blackberry is the dominant provider of smartphones in North America with an estimated 57% market share.

The new device features special media keys for playing music, videos and other media and is aimed at broadening the smartphone market for Blackberry, which has traditionally seen most of its traction in the corporate space.

The company is also hoping that the 8520 will be affordable enough to bring it within reach of users who have not been able to afford to switch to smartphones.

Country manager for Rim South Africa, Deon Liebenberg, said cellphones are increasingly being used as the devices of choice for accessing the Internet.

Blackberry subscriptions for unlimited Internet access can be bought from Vodacom or MTN at R60 a month.

"You can access Facebook, Twitter, your email, browse the Web and do just about anything else online for just R2 a day," said Liebenberg.

Liebenberg believed no compromises were made in angling the device for a broader market.

"It's still a Blackberry," he said, "and it does all the things you'd expect from a Blackberry.

"But it is both affordable and easy to use, making it the ideal first smartphone for the millions of South Africans who have yet to make the switch from cellphone to smartphone."

The 8520 includes WiFi, a two megapixel camera and two gigabyte memory card. It does not have 3G and instead uses GPRS or EDGE for cellular data connectivity.

- Fin24.com