RIM has recently made the BlackBerry service available in major markets, including China, Taiwan and South Korea. It now says that starting later this year, the service will be available in Japan through a partnership with NTT DoCoMo Inc.

North America is RIM's strongest market, but the company now wants to expand BlackBerry's reach into new markets. Asia, with its large population of mobile subscribers and rapidly expanding markets like China and India, offers great potential, a company official said.

BlackBerry first came to Asia in 2002, when the service was made available in Hong Kong. Since then, RIM has signed up more than two dozen operators to offer BlackBerry service in 16 Asia-Pacific countries. The company plans to add another ten operators over the next twelve months. RIM officials said that they were currently in talks with carriers from all the countries in Asia.