BlackBerry has decided that the company will be concentrating on its core strength of enterprise level software and secure mobile operating system and will offload almost all of its hardware production on to Foxconn after it reported losses in tune of $4.4 billion for the third quarter of the current financial year.
BlackBerry’s interim Chief Executive, John Chen, made the announcement through a press release and revealed that the new roadmap will ensure improved financial performance in 2014. The announcement had a positive impact on BlackBerry stock which saw a 15.5 percent rise and closed at $7.22.
The Candian firm has had to tread a rough road lately with initial plans of a sell-out going bust and replacement of the entire executive team including the CEO. The company hasn’t managed to cope with the pressure from Google and Apple in the smartphone segment and even Microsoft has outpaced the struggling company in many regions.
Chen, during an investor call, revealed that he is looking forward to find ways of getting BlackBerry experience on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.
BlackBerry isn’t bailing out completely from the hardware market and its deal with Foxconn will ensure that there will be BlackBerry branded smartphones available to overseas customers with a special focus on emerging markets. This indicates that the company will be targeting the mid-range smartphone segment rather than the high-end smartphone segment.
“Company strikes joint device development and manufacturing agreement with Foxconn; initial focus of partnership to be development of a consumer smartphone for Indonesia and other fast-growing markets in early 2014”, the company announced.
[Source: Press Release]
