BlackBerry Bold 9790 goes on sale in Jakarta, chaos ensues

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 was introduced a few days ago and while it wasn’t exactly a big deal over in this side of the world, things were a little different in Jakarta, Indonesia. The phone went up for sale today, and thousands of people stood in line to get their hands on the phone. What was supposed to be an orderly event where customers would be dealt with on a first come, first served basis turned into chaos with reports of people fainting and getting injured in the process.

The organizers of the launch had announced earlier this week that the first thousand customers would receive a 50% discount on the phone. Seeing how everybody loves freebies, you can guess how many people turned up for the event. But all hell broke loose when word spread out about the phone supply not being able to meet the demand of the BlackBerry consumers in line.

Fortunately around 300 police and paramilitary officers showed up and the event was shut down for safety reasons. I guess RIM can rest assured that while their grasp on the smartphone market in the US is dwindling, there are folks in other parts of the world who would brave such events to buy their phones.

George Wong
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: BlackBerry, blackberry bold, RIM