With plans to unveil its BlackBerry 10 operating system and new devices later this month, Research In Motion today showed that there were still carriers interested in its current offerings. The device maker announced that T-Mobile USA will begin offering its Curve 9315 smartphone running its BlackBerry 7.1 OS on Jan. 16.
The device sports the familiar Curve shape that has been around for years, and will slot in as an entry-level BlackBerry model for the carrier. The 9315 will sport a full QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi connectivity for both data and voice, a 3.2-megapixel camera and run across T-Mobile USA’s UMTS-based 3G network.
Pricing for the device will be $50 for those choosing a two-year contract, or for those looking to avoid a contract they can put $50 down and make 20 monthly payments of $10 per month. T-Mobile USA currently offers the Curve 9360 with a more upscale hardware spec for $50 with a two-year contract and the Bold 9900 that runs across its HSPA-based “4G” network for $130.
RIM, once dominate in the smartphone space, has been under increasing competitive pressure from Apple and smartphone makers relying on Google’s Android OS.
Canalys recently reported that RIM was the No. 5 vendor of smartphones during the third quarter with 4.2% market share and shipping 7.3 million units worldwide. The results were down from No. 4 position RIM held during the third quarter of 2011, when it shipped 11.8 million units. During the most recent quarter, Samsung, which relies on Google’s Android OS for a vast majority of its smartphone sales, was far and away the No. 1 smartphone vendor shipping 55.5 million devices for 32% of the market. Apple occupied the No. 2 position with a 15.5% share, followed by Sony at 5.1% and HTC at 4.8%.
RIM last month announced it had lost $114 million on $2.7 billion in revenues during its fiscal third quarter, citing pressure to reduce the fees it charges carriers. RIM is the only smartphone maker that maintains a proprietary network, and carriers must pay a fee to let their subscribers access that network. Those fees currently generate about one-third of RIM’s worldwide revenue.
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