Research in Motion launched a new "affordable" BlackBerry smartphone in India on Wednesday in a push to target emerging markets.

Blackberry maker Research in Motion is struggling to regain its corporate foothold in a market that has shifted to Apple and Google's Android mobile phones. While U.S. Blackberry use is said to be in a "free fall" according to an April 17 OnForce Confidence Index report, emerging markets like India and Indonesia could provide the Canadian company with much needed relief.

The new Curve 9220 is priced in India at 10,900 rupees (US$210) with some features like a dedicated key for accessing BlackBerry Messenger and FM Radio, a 2 mega-pixel screen and it only works on 2G mobile networks. The Curve 9220 isn't the most advanced mobile phone available in the market but RIM is using what it calls as a parallel approach by building the high-end next generation of devices while making affordable phones to entice customers to trade up.

"We're really trying to build on and help those people who are moving from feature phone to smartphone. We believe we can be successful in that," Patrick Spence, RIM's global sales chief, told the Huffington Post. RIM said the Curve 9220 will launch in other markets including Indonesia in the coming weeks.

Research in Motion has struggled to compete in the smartphone market that is dominated by Apple's iPhone and devices based on Google's Android platform. RIM's U.S. sales have fallen for five straight quarters and its hold on consumer markets in Latin America and Europe have started to erode. RIM's traditional strength: the enterprise market is also under attack from Apple and Android. An April 18 analysis from Ovum shows that workers operating under bring-your-own device policies prefer Apple's iOS platform with 40 percent of iPhone managed on mobile-device-management platforms compared with just 24 percent of BlackBerry phones.

RIM's success in India, where it has a 15% share of the Indians smartphone market in 2011, could provide the company with some measure of reprieve while it awaits the launch of its next generation BlackBerry 10 operating system which RIM hopes will revive interest in the platform.