Reliance Offers BlackBerry in India, Vies With Bharti (Update2)

Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Reliance Communications Ltd., India's second-biggest mobile-phone operator, began offering Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry service in India to lure corporate users from larger rival Bharti Airtel Ltd.

The service will generate monthly revenue of 2,000 rupees ($49) to 3,000 rupees per user, or as much as 10 times that of mobile-phone users, Prakash Bajpai, president of Reliance's enterprise unit, told reporters in Mumbai today. The wireless device, which allows users to make calls, e-mail, browse the Web and download songs, will initially be offered in 16 cities.

Reliance Communications, based in Mumbai, is almost three years behind Bharti in offering the BlackBerry to woo higher- spending business clients as falling mobile-phone rates reduce operators' profitability in India.

The companies declined to forecast how many units Reliance expects to sell, or provide an estimate for the number of users at Bharti or Vodafone Group Plc's local unit.

Reliance will offer the first BlackBerry service on the world's two major mobile-phone platforms, the global system for mobile communications, or GSM, and code division multiple access, or CDMA, networks, letting subscribers use it overseas. The dual-platform model costs 33,990 rupees ($836).

Indian carriers including Bharti and Reliance are selling more Web-related services as call charges in India drop to the lowest in the world at 1 U.S. cent a minute.

Reliance Communications shares were unchanged at 544.30 rupees as of 3:30 p.m. in Mumbai. They have gained 15 percent this year, compared with a 35 percent gain for Bharti.

The monthly charges for the service will vary between 899 rupees and 1,099 rupees, Bajpai said.

Vodafone Essar, previously known as Hutchison Essar, began offering the BlackBerry service in India, the world's fastest growing wireless market, on Dec. 14.

To contact the reporters on this story: Chitra Somayaji in Mumbai at csomayaji@bloomberg.net; Shailendra Bhatnagar in New Delhi at sbhatnagar3@bloomberg.net;

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Teo Chian Wei at cwteo@bloomberg.net