Vodacom and RIM Launch the New BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 Smartphones in South Africa

South Africa and Waterloo, ON - Vodacom and Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced the launch of the new BlackBerry® Bold™ 9790 and BlackBerry® Curve™ 9380 smartphones in South Africa.

Powered by the new BlackBerry® 7 operating system (OS), these new smartphones extend the range of BlackBerry 7 smartphones available from Vodacom.

Vodacom’s Managing Executive, Sales, Zunaid Dinath said, “We are excited to offer two new BlackBerry 7-based smartphones to our customers in South Africa. We trust our customers will be impressed by the smooth and integrated communications features, responsive interface, and stylish finish these new models offer.”

“We are pleased to work with Vodacom to introduce the BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 smartphones to customers in South Africa,” said Rui Brites, Director of Product Management for Africa at RIM. “Thanks to the new BlackBerry 7 operating system, these powerful new devices deliver a fast, rich and fluid experience.”

BlackBerry Bold 9790 with Touch Display and Keyboard
True to the BlackBerry Bold brand, the new BlackBerry Bold 9790 smartphone is powerful, full-featured and built with premium materials and finishes. It combines a high-resolution and highly responsive touch display with a highly tactile keyboard and a precise optical trackpad, but comes in a narrow design that is easy to carry and exceptionally comfortable to hold. With the BlackBerry 7 OS and powerful 1 GHz processor, the BlackBerry Bold 9790 delivers fast, smooth performance for browsing the web, running apps, working with documents, and enjoying multimedia. It includes 8GB of onboard memory and an expandable memory card slot that supports up to 32 GB of additional storage.

All-Touch BlackBerry Curve 9380
The finely crafted BlackBerry Curve 9380 is the first touch screen smartphone in the BlackBerry Curve family. It features a highly responsive and brilliant 3.2” high resolution display and comes with preinstalled social networking apps, including BBM™ (BlackBerry® Messenger), Facebook®, Twitter™ and Social Feeds , that offer a fun, easy and smoothly integrated mobile experience. This compact and stylish handset also features a 5MP camera with flash and video recording, allowing users to easily capture and share their favorite moments with family, friends and colleagues.

Powerful BlackBerry 7 OS
The BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 are both powered by the new BlackBerry 7 OS, which delivers a faster and richer user experience with improved browsing, voice-activated searches, and support for Augmented Reality and NFC (Near Field Communications). BlackBerry 7 also supports the ability to manage personal content separately from corporate content, and comes with a variety of personal and productivity apps out of the box.

For more information about the BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380, please visit http://za.blackberry.com/devices/blackberrybold9790 and http://za.blackberry.com/devices/blackberrycurve9380 respectively.

About Vodacom
Vodacom is an African mobile communications company providing voice, messaging, data and converged services to more than 50 million customers. From our roots in South Africa, we have grown our operations to include networks in Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo (‘DRC’), Mozambique and Lesotho.

Vodacom is majority owned by Vodafone, one of the world’s largest mobile communications companies by revenue. We’re listed on the JSE Limited and our head office is in Johannesburg, South Africa.

About Research In Motion
Research In Motion (RIM), a global leader in wireless innovation, revolutionized the mobile industry with the introduction of the BlackBerry® solution in 1999. Today, BlackBerry products and services are used by millions of customers around the world to stay connected to the people and content that matter most throughout their day. Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo, Ontario, RIM operates offices in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. RIM is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market (NASDAQ: RIMM) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: RIM). For more information, visit www.rim.com or www.blackberry.com.