RIM Launches Blackberry Curve 9220, Targets Teens, Feature Phone Users

Here's the new Blackberry Curve 9220, snapped in our hands at the Jakarta launch. Click to enlarge.

At the X2 Club in Jakarta this afternoon, RIM (NASDAQ:RIMM) officially unveiled its latest addition to the Curve series, the Blackberry Curve 9220 (pictured right). It can be bought for IDR 1,999,999 ($222), an entry price which is more affordable for the lower-end phone market that should make it attractive to some younger Indonesians.

The Blackberry Curve 9220 – with its tagline ‘Stop missing out’ – will try capture feature phone users who are starting to move towards smartphones. Some new features in the Curve 9220 include a dedicated button for Blackberry Messenger (for faster access to your BBM), the new OS 7.1 (which will come as an update for the Blackberry Bold 9790, 9900, and Curve 9380 in the coming months), longer battery life compared to other BBs, and – last but not least – FM radio built-in.

Hastings Singh (pictured below), managing director of RIM South Asia, explained:

The new Blackberry Curve 9220 is a huge improvement for feature phone users, it will give a great mobile experience with social networks platform built around it. To add more integration, we even added a dedicated button for Blackberry Messenger, a feature that is demanded by our users […] Over the past few years, Indonesia has shown a lot of love for Blackberry, and we love them back.

How huge is Indonesia’s love for Blackberry? It is the top selling smartphone, now has over 4,000 retail points of presence over the next year, and to date, claims the company, it has created over 6,000 jobs here.

With the Curve 9220 targeting the lower end of the market as well as younger consumers, Indonesia is definitely the right market, where half of the population is under 30 years old, and 5.5 million of them in Jakarta alone. That was emphasised a great deal by RIM at the launch presentation. To be even more specific, 39 percent of the population is between 10- to 24-years old, and RIM is trying to capture exactly that segment. Will it work? Maybe. But in my opinion, for the long term Android and cheaper iPhones can seriously squeeze that market share of RIM. That’s exactly the kind of dire situation the Canadian phone maker is facing across Europe and the US.