Amidst the cracks of the once almighty BlackBerry empire that recently saw its stock nosedive and many question the speed at which it is transitioning to its new QNX platform to compete with the likes of Apple and Android, there are a few bright lights.

 

Southeast Asia is where the BB still enjoys something of a cult status and where the Canadian company is pinning its hopes.

 

The firm has launched a new flagship store in Bangkok at the city’s high-end Paragon shopping centre, the first of its kind in the world. I had the chance to talk to Rohilesh Singh, senior director for retail strategy for RIM in East Asia at the launch and how it was more than just another flagship store and what it meant for his company.

 

RIM is notorious for being tight lipped, but upon careful prying revealed a few nuggets of information. Singh said that BlackBerry had put a lot of cold, hard cash into the store. How much exactly? The only answer was, “a lot”. Well, that is more than we usually get out of RIM.

 

He said that RIM’s market share in Thailand was still growing year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter. He also suggested that in the coming months, RIM will be announcing the appointment of many new executives with a very strong background in the retail sector. Interesting.

 

The store was launched in partnership with a major distributor, J-Mart, whose CEO was somewhat more forthcoming with numbers. RIM’s market share at its existing stores was 18% and rising, with Nokia down to the mid twenties and Samsung at over 40% of what the chain shifts.

 

Meanwhile, the store itself was predictable enough in this post-Apple store era - 60 real devices to play with, not a dummy phone in sight, lots of trained (fingers crossed) people to answer questions, help to transfer all your settings to your new device. Oh, and there was BlackBerry branded water to quench your thirst too.

 

Perhaps the only major deviation from the tech norm was the way the walls were plastered with pictures of celebrities and their quotes of love of BlackBerries.