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Finland, Finland, Finland, country where I want to be! No seriously, I’ve called this place home since July 2007. Two things that Finland doesn’t have that most of the world does: Starbucks and RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones. Is that really a bad thing when you think about it? Anyway, things are going to change in April. That’s the month that Cubio plans on bringing RIM’s handsets to the only country in Europe that’s never seen a BlackBerry. To be perfectly honest, I’ve never even heard of Cubio until now. Some quick poking around on their website shows that they’re an MVNO that uses Elisa’s network. Elisa is the operator that I, and most Finnish people, use. The second best operator is Sonera. And the third best is DNA. So who exactly is Cubio and why did they start an MVNO? According to CrackBerry they’ve been around since 1999, and as of 2010 they have about 17,000 subscribers. That’s pretty pathetic, though at the same time it’s unsurprising. Mobile operators here offer fantastic rates. MVNOs, by their very nature, need to try and differentiate themselves on something other than price … and since when do people care about something other than price?
So will BlackBerry take off in Finland? Free messages via BBM is nice, but it’s going to require that you and your entire social circle purchase of a new smartphone. If you’re going to buy a new handset, chances are it’s going to be an iPhone. I can count the people I know who don’t have an iPhone on one hand. Why’s that important? Because iPhone users text each other for free thanks to iMessage. That being said, there’s a growing immigrant population who’ll likely enjoy talking to their friends and family back home via BBM, but that market is made up of just 250,000 people.
Will Elisa and Sonera start offering BlackBerry devices in response to Cubio? That’s the bigger question here. Should either one of them decide to do so, I’ll definitely be here to report it.
[Via: YLE News]
About The Author
Stefan Constantinescu
Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.
