Research In Motion, the owner of BlackBerry devices, is planning a major expansion in one of the world's most populated countries: India.
The Canadian company plans to expand its presence to 160 cities, The Economic Times reported. RIM began operations in India in 2004 and already has a presence in more than 80 cities, according to the article.
It's not much of a surprise that RIM would want to increase its footprint in India given the vast number of people in the country. India has added 240 million people in the last 11 years and is on target to surpass China as the world's most populated country in 2020, The Los Angeles Times reported in December, citing U.N. estimates. The country had a population of more than 1.22 billion in 2010 behind China's roughly 1.34 billion people, according to U.N. figures.
Although RIM has struggled with subscriber losses in the United States, the company has been growing its subscriber base in international markets. In its third quarter of fiscal 2012, RIM attributed its BlackBerry tiered service plans to customer growth in Argentina, France, Mexico, United Kingdom and South Africa. For the three months ending Nov. 26, RIM served about 75 million BlackBerry subscribers around the world, according to its quarterly results.
