Plainfield-based Brightpoint Inc. said yesterday it has inked a distribution deal with Research In Motion, the company that designs, manufactures and distributes the BlackBerry smart phone, to distribute the BlackBerry globally.
Brightpoint wouldn't discuss the scale of the deal.
However, spokesman Anurag Gupta said RIM will help Brightpoint expand to 8 percent to 9 percent of the total global cell phone market this year from last year's market share of 6 percent to 7 percent.
RIM also will position Brightpoint for the long term, Gupta said.
Smart phones, which currently command as much as 20 percent of the global market, could assume 75 percent of the market within five years, he said.
RIM is headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario.
Brightpoint has 3,300 full employees globally, including about 1,000 in Indiana. In 2007, Brightpoint generated $47.4 million in profit on $4.3 billion in revenue.
Brightpoint shares climbed 1.7 percent, to $9.93, this morning.
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