With the sales of BlackBerry devices expected to hit four million units in 2011, it’s easy to understand why the Indonesian government is chided by RIM’s decision to make Malaysia its Asian manufacturing hub for BlackBerry devices. After all, Indonesia is among one of the world’s largest market for BlackBerry devices.
The chief of Indonesia’s Capital Investment-Coordinating Board (BKPM) says that Malaysia’s annual BlackBerry sales is only around 400,000 units. He argues that Indonesia makes a more suitable location for RIM to set-up a manufacturing hub due to the sheer market size.
As a result, BKPM has suggested that the Indonesian government take a stand on the matter, which includes removing incentives for RIM and imposing a tax tariff on the Canadian technology firm.
Imposing taxes in a bid to influence RIM to build a factory is just plain silly we think because at the end of the day, it’s the consumers that’s going to lose out due to high prices imposed by the taxes which could lead to RIM losing interest in Indonesia as a key market and turning to India, Thailand and Vietnam to grow its market share in Asia.
At the end of the day, be it China, Malaysia or Indonesia, where RIM decides to manufacturer BlackBerry devices is not important. What is even more critical right now is for RIM to quickly stop its rapidly shrinking global market share.
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