“My expectation is that in some countries we will be launching in [January],” said Frank Boulben, RIM’s new chief marketing officer in an interview today before the company’s annual shareholder meeting near its headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario. “Will it be three continents or five, five countries or 10? I don’t know the specifics yet, but it will be multiple countries on multiple continents.”

RIM has fallen behind in terms of sales in the smartphone market. Apple’s iPhone, along with all devices running Google’s Android platform took away half of RIM’s market share in the first quarter of this year.

The company’s share has fallen to 6.4 percent, while Android holds 59 percent, and Apple has 23 percent.

Boulben feels that releasing the device is January will help propel the Blackberry 10 to success since it will not have to compete with a slew of smartphone releases during the holiday shopping season.