Blackberry says its done building it own phones, to focus on software

Staff Writer September 28, 2016

Less than a minute

Blackberry Priv, was blackberry's first smartphone powered by Android OS.

BlackBerry today has announced its plans to stop making its own smartphones and focus on software and security products. The hardware development work will be outsourced to BlackBerry’s partners.

This is a move by CEO John Chen, in his efforts to turn around the company, once a highly profitable global leader in smartphone technology that has been displaced by products from Apple, Samsung and others.

“The company plans to end all internal hardware development and will outsource that function to partners,” said CEO John Chen in a statement. Elsewhere he stated: “We are reaching an inflection point with our strategy. Our financial foundation is strong, and our pivot to software is taking hold.”

According to estimates from Gartner, the company claimed just 0.1 percent of the market in the second quarter, equating to sales of some 400,400 units.

The last BlackBerry phone to manufactured by the company was the Priv, the company’s first Android-powered device, released November last year.

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