Dec. 10, 2009 (China Knowledge) - China Mobile Ltd<0941><CHL>, the country's largest mobile phone operator, and Research In Motion Ltd, maker of the BlackBerry handsets, announced on Tuesday that they would provide BlackBerry handsets and Internet service to individual consumers and smaller firms in China.

The two companies said in a joint statement that China Mobile will provide BlackBerry handsets on China's homegrown TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE networks.

However, the two firms did not give timetable for their sales campaign.

China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou said that the new cooperation between RIM will broaden BlackBerry's application from large firms to small and medium-sized enterprises and to individuals.

China Mobile, which has more than two thirds of China's mobile telecom market, has been offering BlackBerries to large corporate customers in China since 2006.

On Monday, RIM signed a cooperation agreement with Digital China Holdings Ltd<0861>, a Hong Kong-listed information technology company. The agreement will give RIM access to Digital China's national distribution network, which will help RIM promote its Blackberry smartphones in China, China Knowledge reported earlier.