MOBILE phone operator Hello will introduce Research in Motion’s (RIM) latest Blackberry Bold handset to Cambodia at the end of this month, Brand Manager Gary Foo told the Post by email.

The Kuala Lumpur-based company will ship “a few thousand units” of the new Bold 9700, he said. Hello first launched the 3G Bold handset in the Kingdom in July, following its Blackberry launch at the end of April.

“We’ve seen encouraging take up of our Blackberries in the past couple of months and we would like to continue to capitalise on this trend,” Foo said, adding that the Cambodian smartphone market was expanding as mobile users in the Kingdom increasingly take up more sophisticated handsets.

Financial results from the last quarter showed Hello’s active users increased by 12 percent compared with the previous period, the firm’s strongest quarter-on-quarter subscriber growth in 2009.

Hello CEO Simon Perkins told the Post on February 24 that the Malaysian firm “spent heavily” on its 3G network in the fourth quarter to support data services.

Fourth-quarter financial results released last month showed the firm invested 5 percent of total capital expenditure in Cambodia last year, compared with just 2 percent in 2008. This was against a backdrop of a 47 percent reduction in expenditure over the same period – down to 3.015 billion Malaysian ringgits (US$885.6 million) from 5.652 billion ringgits the previous year.

Market leader Mobitel is the only other operator in Cambodia’s saturated mobile marketplace to offer RIM’s Blackberry handsets and data services.