Telkomsel Targets 30%-40% Growth in Blackberry Subscribers -Kontan 

(The Insider Stories) — Indonesia’s biggest cellular provider, Telkomsel, a unit of Telkom that is partly owned by Singapore’s Singtel, is targeting growth of up to 40% in users of its Blackberry services, Kontan reported Thursday.

Arief Pradetya, head of the company’s device bundling and customization strategy division, was quoted as saying that Telkomsel currently has 5.8 million subscribers who use Blackberry smartphones.

Indonesians are among the world’s most prolific users of the device produced by Canada’s Research in Motion, largely as it offers a free messaging service called Blackberry Messenger, making the country a stronghold for the Blackberry even as competition from products like U.S.-based Apple’s iPhone line and Google Android-based smartphones from South Korea’s Samsung and China’s HTC crimp sales in regional markets.