It took eight years of effort, but Research In Motion Ltd (RIM) has finally cracked the world's biggest cellphone market, winning permission to sell its BlackBerry devices in China for the first time.

After many delays, RIM managed to get a long-awaited approval for its BlackBerry handsets from the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry last month, according to a manager in the company's Beijing office.

The company expects to begin selling its BlackBerry 8700g handset in Chinese shops at the end of next month, the manager said yesterday. He said the company has already received almost 5,000 advance orders for the device, mostly from corporate customers, especially foreign multinationals with offices in China.

It will probably be sold in China at the equivalent of about $700.

"It's a high-end device, mainly for the needs of business people," he said. "But I expect the sales will be as hot as in other countries in the future."

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The approval from the Chinese government is a big breakthrough for RIM in the last remaining major market in Asia that it had been unable to penetrate. The company had launched the BlackBerry in other key markets such as Japan, India, Singapore and South Korea in recent years, but China was the major holdout.

With almost 500 million cellphone users, China is a crucial market for RIM's future prospects. Some analysts have estimated that RIM could see 25-per-cent growth in worldwide customers after it gets the BlackBerry fully operational in China.

RIM was able to launch its wireless service in China last year, through its partnership with China Mobile. But the company could not sell its handsets in China until it cleared all the red-tape hurdles last month.

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