50 million BlackBerrys shipped

Canadian gadget shop Research In Motion (RIM), said Thursday that it shipped its 50 millionth fruit flavoured handset during January 2009.

During the fourth quarter of 2008, the BlackBerry vendor notched up 2.6 million net new subscriber accounts and shipped approximately 6.7 million devices.

As of the end of 2008, there were approximately 21 million active BlackBerry subscribers worldwide, with RIM’s own BlackBerry infrastructure handling 3 petabytes of traffic per month, and it’s not all email. Over 7 million people have downloaded the Facebook for BlackBerry application, the vendor claims.

RIM launched its first BlackBerry ten years ago.