Moms waiting to pick up their kids to school, teenagers hanging out with friends in a cafe, drivers waiting for their masters to finish work, businessmen in office elevators. What do they all have in common?
You would be surprised to know that Facebook and the BlackBerry are the two common denominators that brought these diverse groups together in Jakarta.
“If my maid sends a friend request to my Facebook account, should I accept?” asks Adjie, a tax advisor for an oil and gas company, to a group of friends recently. Laughter was what he got for an answer, but the problem is real enough.
Observe Faizal, since his in-laws registered to Facebook and added him as a connection, he no longer dares to make wild comments on this status, or post photos that would depict him other than a loving husband and father.
Three years ago all this would have been unthinkable. Today, it is not uncommon to see stay-at-home moms updating their facebook status on her BlackBerry Curve 8900.
Facebook has been touted to sparking the trend for reunions in Indonesia, and especially Jakarta. Old school friends connect, share stories, photographs, and organize meet-ups all because of the social networking site. It has also, undoubtedly, become one of the driving forces behind the popularity and ubiquity of the BlackBerry in Jakarta.
BlackBerries are nothing new, even in Indonesia. It was first introduced here in December 2004 by telecommunication operator Indosat and Starhub (Source) targeting the business executive market.
“BlackBerry is already the ‘must-have’ business tool for CEOs, executives, managers, employees and celebrities around the globe,” then Indosat Cellular Marketing Director, Hasnul Suhaimi, said in a press release dated Dec. 2, 2004. “We expect BlackBerry will be very popular with Indonesian companies and individuals, and will provide them with substantial productivity gains.”
But its exponential growth only started several years ago when its maker – Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM) – introduced popular instant messaging Yahoo! Messenger in 2005 (Source), then Facebook in 2007 (Source). With only 2 million users on its 20th anniversary in 2004 (Source) – which it doubled the following year – RIM now boasts a strong 28.5 million subscribers worldwide (Source).
In Indonesia, BlackBerry users have increased more than 500% within the past year. With 300 to 400,000 users to date, BlackBerry users is expected to reach more than 1 million people by the end of the year (Source).
Now, BlackBerry services are not only available to post-paid mobile phone customers, but also to pre-paid customers. And further increasing its customer base in Indonesia, RIM reportedly will soon introduce the service to CDMA customers as well.
