BlackBerry most favored in Shanghai

Shanghai Mobile revealed yesterday that Shanghai ranks No. 1 in mainland China for BlackBerry services, with over 670 enterprise clients and 3,482 individual users by end of June.

On the company's eighth anniversary reception, Yang Haikang, Shanghai Mobile's told the source that the popular handset-based e-mail service has profited them several million yuan monthly, and both the amount of income and user numbers accounted for half of the national level since its debut on May 17 last year.

Shanghai-based multinationals, including Coca-Cola, Nokia, Standard Chartered and McDonald's, have subscribed to the BlackBerry service, which allows users to access e-mail, the Internet, phones calls and corporate data.

The current subscription fee for the service is RMB 398 (US$52.58) to RMB 598 a month.

"The high-end clients will lift the carrier's value-added service income after its voice income was eroded by fierce competition," said Sandy Shen, an analyst at a leading provider of research and analysis on the global information technology industry, Gartner Inc.

Shanghai Mobile's parent China Mobile<941>, which is also the world's largest mobile operator, is the exclusive partner of Research in Motion, BlackBerry's developer in mainland China.

Meanwhile, China Mobile said recently it will provide the RIM-developed telecom devices, the BlackBerry 7290 and 8700, in the third quarter.