Viva, the newest player in the Bahrain telecom sector said it has become the first in the kingdom to offer a social bundle for its BlackBerry users as well as launch its own BlackBerry App Store.

The social bundle will enable users to access BlackBerry Messenger and social networking applications like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, in addition to instant messaging tools like MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk.

The Viva App Store will enable subscribers to have the cost of apps charged to their bills and avoid the use of credit cards.

Viva acting CEO Ulaiyan Al Wetaid also announced the company had reduced monthly BlackBerry charges for its post-paid customers from BD10 to BD8 ($26.5 to $21.2).

'We have revealed these exciting new plans and features to coincide with the launch of the BlackBerry Bold 9900,' Al Wetaid said, speaking during a Press conference at the company's Seef headquarters.

'The new plans will offer the best rates available on the local market and will cater to more BlackBerry users than ever before,' he said.

'To further cater to users' needs, pre-paid customers can now benefit from a new weekly unlimited BlackBerry service package for BD2.5, in addition to the usual monthly BD10 plan.'

He said the social bundle is aimed at customers whose smartphone usage was predominantly social networking.

'This is now available for BD3 per month for post-paid and BD1 per week for pre-paid.'

Al Wetaid said for a limited promotional period, customers who sign up for this service can enjoy the full BlackBerry experience for up to 200MB of data usage.

'VIVA now also offers its own application store for BlackBerry, the first-of-its-kind in Bahrain,' he said.

'Users now have free access to a full-fledged App Store, offering both free and paid applications in 13 categories such as games, productivity, fitness and finance,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service