Research In Motion plans to launch in Egypt as it desperately looks to sustain sales of BlackBerry handsets in the region.
The troubled smartphone maker, which has been hit hard by rivals Samsung and Apple, is set to build a development centre in Egypt that will help to create mobile applications in Arabic.
Sources close to RIM said the centre, set to be announced in the next month, would be located at Smart Village, just outside Cairo.
The Canadian company will provide training courses designed to boost the number of Arabic and Middle East-focused applications running on its BlackBerry 10 (BB10) software, which is expected to be launched in the first quarter of next year.
RIM was also weighing opening an office in Cairo to help to drive sales of handsets running on the new operating system.
"When the timing is right, we'd like to expand our footprint into North Africa," said Robert Bose, the managing director for RIM in the Middle East and Africa.
"We don't have an office in Cairo, so that would probably be one of the places that we think has quite some potential."
The company recently opened offices in Riyadh and Lagos. BlackBerry's sales in the Middle East grew by about 110 per cent in its last fiscal year, although that rate of growth was slower than in previous years.
"A lot of our growth has come from the Middle East and Africa," said Mr Bose.
"So keeping the momentum that we have built up going is the key mission.
"It's nice to have people close to the customer. We think there's potential all across North Africa. Similarly we think there's potential all across sub-Saharan Africa."
Mr Bose said RIM was "on track" to bring out its first BB10 devices in the first quarter of next year.
"We're talking to carriers about how we're going to go to market with the BlackBerry 10 devices in the first quarter of next year across the Middle East and North Africa," he said.
The executive said RIM expected there to be 100,000 mobile applications ready with the launch of the operating system and accompanying handsets.
The new operating system is seen as a make-or-break move for the troubled RIM, which has suffered from tough competitions and massive share-price declines.
Its woes have been compounded by several network outages, which left BlackBerry users unable to use email or internet services.
Mr Bose insisted that BlackBerry's network was not fundamentally flawed.
"We do everything we can to ensure that our network is as reliable as possible," he said.
RIM said in April it planned to launch dedicated BlackBerry retail stores across the Middle East.
Sandeep Saihgal, managing director for RIM in the Middle East, said that the first of these was set to open in Dubai by the end of this year or the beginning of the next.
Additional BlackBerry stores were planned in "other cities and countries", said Mr Saihgal, although he declined to give details.
