BlackBerry mobile phone has about 114,000 users in India, says minister

Mumbai: Just about 114,000 mobile subscribers in the country are using Research In Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry services, much lower than the 400,000 reported in the media, minister of state for telecommunications Jyotiraditya Scindia said.

"As per the information received from service providers, there are around 114,000 subscribers as of date who are being provided BlackBerry services by various telecom companies," Scindia informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply.

Four firms, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone Essar and BPL Mobile provide BlackBerry services in India.

While RIM does not give country-specific data, the company is reported to have addded 50,000 users in India even as the controversy over its use in is yet to be resolved.

The four operators that offer these services - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, BPL Mobile and Reliance Communications - are believed to have added over 50,000 customers in the four months since the problem surfaced.

The government had asked telecom firms not to provide certain BlackBerry services until monitoring systems are in place as the emails sent using it could not be traced or intercepted.

The government had also asked RIM to install servers in India as the department of telecom (DoT) could not monitor BlackBerry content as RIM's servers were located in Canada and other sites outside India.

The telecom ministry has, however, assured operators that BlackBerry service would be allowed to continue in the country subject to RIM complying with the government's security requirements.

RIM has since agreed to work with the government to enhance security aspects of the service.