Good and bad news for BlackBerry fans, as the company’s CEO John Chen made some interesting statements last week, which suggest there will be fewer new devices coming from the Canadian handset maker next year.

Even though BlackBerry is much more than just a smartphone manufacturer, the company’s devices are the main products that should attract customers.

It’s easier for a company to have an entire security solution from only one company and BlackBerry has proven over the years that it’s one of the best when it comes to communication privacy and security.

When a company decides to switch from a security solution to another one, it usually wants the whole package, which is why you need to have a solid software and hardware package so you can offer both products.

BlackBerry’s software solutions are some of the best, if not the best, in the field, which is why they need to be backed by smartphones that should be at least on par with these security solutions.

For the first time in the last few years, BlackBerry’s financial results show positive signs that the company is ready for a comeback in the smartphone business.

Although the Canadian company didn’t really disappear from this business, the company market share shrunk to around 1% worldwide, which is incredible low for one of the top 5 smartphone manufacturers several years ago.

Well, taking into consideration that Nokia is not active in the smartphone business anymore, what happened with BlackBerry shouldn’t be surprising.

Both Nokia and BlackBerry had something in common, they were oblivious to the changings in the market, and when they realized they have to come up with something innovative, it was too late or that something wasn’t good enough to offer a viable alternative to iOS and Android.

The good news is BlackBerry survived, and starting this year the company actually made some profit for the first time in a few years.
BlackBerry will focus on profitability and growth rather than launching lots of new devices

During an interview for Reuters, the company’s CEO John Chen that once his company is turned to profitability, he will do everything he can not to put BlackBerry in the same position it was several years ago when it was bleeding huge amounts of money.

After a flawless execution of the first phase of a 2-year turnaround plan, BlackBerry is now in the position to choose the path it wishes to take in order to regain the huge market share it lost during the last couple of years.

A glimpse to BlackBerry’s new strategy on the short term has been offered during the same interview by John Chen. According to him, BlackBerry has no plans to launch a “general purpose” device that all Chinese OEMs can make for just $75.


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He continued by saying that his company would have immense issues to secure enough parts together for $75, which is why BlackBerry will focus on innovation rather than standardized devices.

More importantly, BlackBerry’s CEO stated that his company will not build a product based on one feature or just because it needs to cover a certain niche. So, don’t expect the company to launch a phablet just because everyone else released a smartphone with a large display.

Chen said that his company would now focus on growth and profitability rather than on launching more devices throughout the year. According to the company’s CEO, BlackBerry will only launch devices that are highly likely to succeed, though it’s unclear how it will manage to measure that.Sequels to BlackBerry Passport, Classic and Z3 have been confirmed for 2015

Bottom line is that BlackBerry will launch one “unconventional” device each year, as well as sequels to its Passport, Classic and Z3. This means that we might be looking at only 4 smartphones that will be launched by BlackBerry yearly, which is way behind in comparison with what competition releases each year.

In fact, in a year BlackBerry may launch as many smartphones as Samsung releases each month, but the comparison doesn’t really stand given the huge market value of these companies.

BlackBerry has a lot of ground to regain and under John Chen’s leadership the company is likely to succeed although it will take time to reach a top spot in world’s most prolific smartphone manufacturers.

The newest smartphone launched by BlackBerry, Passport has proven that the Canadian company is capable to innovate when it needs to. The unusual smartphone is selling everywhere BlackBerry managed to launch it and stock seem to be depleting very fast.

One of the reasons would be the fact that many customers want to stand out and prefer a smartphone with an unusual form factor, but BlackBerry also confirmed it did not make too many Passport devices.

This is probably the main reason BlackBerry Passport is in limited supply at all carriers and authorized retails and is likely to stay that way until the sequel is announced next year.


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BlackBerry has yet to decide on its lineup for 2015, but Classic arrives in December

Regarding the lineup of smartphones for 2015, John Chen said that the decision to launch certain devices hasn’t been made yet, which means most of the upcoming phones are still under development.

However, we do know that the company plans to launch the
BlackBerry Classic sometime in mid-December. This will be the last smartphone the Canadian company will be launching this year.

The next BlackBerry smartphone is expected to be announced in late February / early March during Mobile World Congress (2015), which will take place in Barcelona, Spain.

Judging by Chen’s statement that no final decision has been made on what new smartphones will be launched next year, we do not know what device the company plans to announce at MWC 2015.

Overall, it looks like BlackBerry has a bright future ahead and choosing John Chen as CEO was the best move the company’s investors could have done.

Here is hoping John Chen will share more details on BlackBerry’s smartphones for 2015 sooner rather than later.