RESEARCH in Motion and China Mobile Shanghai branch yesterday launched a BlackBerry service for consumers - the first time the popular mobile e-mail service has been made available for personal users in the city.

Canada-based RIM also plans to unveil a new phone that uses China's own 3G standard this year, which has been developed in Shanghai, Geogory Shea, managing director of RIM China, said yesterday.

China Mobile will charge personal users 98 yuan (US$14.6) or 118 yuan for a monthly package that includes pushmail services for up to 10 email accounts. The world's No. 1 telco now has 30,000 BlackBerry users in the city, ranking No. 1 nationwide, according to Wan Guoguang, Shanghai Mobile's vice general manager.

For enterprise clients, Shanghai Mobile provides BlackBerry services for monthly fees ranging from 198 to 598 yuan.

"We have seen sizzling demand from consumers, even stronger than our traditional enterprise businesses," said Shea.

RIM, the world's No. 2 smartphone operator, has invested heavily to establish two research centers in Beijing and Shanghai. Its local team is working on a "Shanghai Program," a new BlackBerry phone that supports China Mobile's TD-SCDMA (time division-synchronous code division mutliple access) 3G standard. This model would debut before spring this year, Shea indicated.

The two firms are also eying setting up an application market in China, akin to Nokia-MM market developed by Nokia and China Mobile.