New Zealand Sport Software Developer CricHQ Signs Deal With BlackBerry

New Zealand sport software developer CricHQ "has sealed a deal with the Canadian mobile phone maker that will see its content become accessible on BlackBerry's new BBM Channel messaging service," according to Christopher Adams of the NEW ZEALAND HERALD. While the mobile phone firm's sales "have declined as a result of competition from Samsung and Apple smartphones," Baker said that BlackBerry "remained strong in cricket-mad India, particularly among businesspeople." Baker: "And while we're focusing on the Indian part of it, around the IPL [Indian Premier League], a large part of our business is in Africa and BBM is the dominant messaging service in Africa as well." CricHQ, "which has 125,000 active monthly users and claims to have the world's biggest collection of cricket data," has raised NZ$8M ($6.9M) from private investors. The company is gearing up to raise another NZ$6M over the next couple of months "to fund a marketing push in India" (NZ HERALD, 3/27).