Research In Motion Ltd., seeking to revive sales of the PlayBook tablet, will incorporate its popular instant-messaging program into the device by the time it debuts a new operating system later this year.

RIM didn't include BBM, as the free messaging service is known, in the PlayBook in an upgrade last week as the Canadian company is still working on technical aspects, Alec Saunders, vice-president for developer relations, said Wednesday in an interview at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

"It will definitely happen by the time we ship the BlackBerry 10 product," Saunders said.

BBM remains a key feature of BlackBerry devices that RIM is re-lying on to drive sales, particularly in emerging markets where text messaging can be more expensive than in Europe or the U.S. Black-Berry demand has held up better in markets such as India and Indonesia, keeping total sales growth from stalling even as revenue in the U.S. plummets and PlayBook shipments remain lacklustre.

Meanwhile, RIM says it plans to increase retail outlets in Indonesia and Thailand, seeking to capitalize on rising demand for its BlackBerry smartphones in Southeast Asia.

Plans call for about 4,000 outlets across Indonesia in the next year, including flagship stores, store-in-stores and kiosks.