India adds 7.7 million GSM customers in October (BlackBerry Bytes)

Anyone who wonders why RIM's recent troubles bringing BlackBerrys to India were such a big deal need only look at these numbers to understand. According to the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI), India's GSM networks added a record breaking 7.7 million net customers in October, bringing India's total GSM base to 241.4 million. These figures, however, do not include the GSM subscriber base from Reliance Communications - which although a predominantly CDMA operator has a growing GSM base as well. Adding Reliance Communications' estimated 9.2 million GSM subscribers would bring India's total base to over 250 million GSM customers.

250 million GSM subscribers - just think about that number for a second. That's almost the population of the United States. How much would it improve RIM's bottom line to grab even a small percentage of that number?

|via CN|

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