A while back I wrote about the Blackberry going to China, first as a knockoff, then as the real thing. Now the New York Times has written about the struggles the ubiquitous device is experiencing in its entry into China. According to the article, the device and its maker, RIM, face a number of obstacles in breaking into China bigtime.

First is the issue of knockoffs, which RIM faced as China Unicom launched the Redberry this Spring. China has, with mobiles as with many other products, a big piracy problem, and one research firm estimates that 15 million black market handsets are were sold in the country this year, versus 80 million legit devices.

One other problem that struck me when I was in China earlier in the year was the fact that many corporate workers employed by non-Chinese firms already have the devices, often powered out of Hong Kong, leaving less room to bump up new account numbers. There will still be good opportunities for RIM, but dealing with these two issues will be Paramount if they are to make China a hot market.