BlackBerry bullish on mobile apps development market

Mumbai, Nov 13: Research In Motion India (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, has said it sees huge opportunities in mobile applications development in India.

The Canada-headquartered RIM currently has over 55 million BlackBerry subscriber accounts, and BlackBerry AppWorld is available in over 100 markets worldwide.

"We see huge opportunity in mobile application development. BlackBerry App World currently has 26,000-odd registered developers from India, against 5,000 two years ago, with the applications numbering over 40,000," RIM India head of alliance and developer relations Annie Mathew told PTI.

The company, in a pilot project in Tamil Nadu, is also training engineering students to help them develop applications. "We have commenced pilot project in Tamil Nadu for applications created by youths for youths. We are keen to take this project across the country," Mathew said.

The company has a 70:30 revenue share, where the app developer gets the major chunk. Over 80 percent of these apps are developed by partners, the rest are in-house. RIM is also working with the government's E-governance projects for health and education, she said.

RIM is launching NFC (near field communications) wireless technology in the country. "We are looking at launching the NFC application here by November-end, which will benefit the domestic healthcare industry immensely. Through NFC, pharma companies will be able to get data from consumers instantly.

RIM sees NFC powering various kinds of apps. For instance, at workplace, NFC could transfer the credentials stored on an ID card to a BlackBerry, allowing user to ditch the card and just carry the phone. It could also let users wirelessly exchange business cards.

PTI