BlackBerry’s days of making hardware are officially over. The company is now going to focus its efforts on the software side of its business with an upcoming joint venture in Indonesia. BlackBerry has been bleeding hard for some years now and tried to make an unsuccessful comeback with its own Android hardware. While the Android hardware was generally well received, it just didn’t catch on in a world dominated by the likes of Samsung, Motorola, LG, Huawei, Nexus, and dozens of others.
“We are reaching an inflection point with our strategy. Our financial foundation is strong, and our pivot to software is taking hold,” said John Chen, Executive Chairman and CEO, BlackBerry. “In Q2, we more than doubled our software revenue year over year and delivered the highest gross margin in the company’s history. We also completed initial shipments of BlackBerry Radar, an end-to end asset tracking system, and signed a strategic licensing agreement to drive global growth in our BBM consumer business.”
“Our new Mobility Solutions strategy is showing signs of momentum, including our first major device software licensing agreement with a telecom joint venture in Indonesia. Under this strategy, we are focusing on software development, including security and applications. The company plans to end all internal hardware development and will outsource that function to partners. This allows us to reduce capital requirements and enhance return on invested capital,” continued Chen.
This is not totally unexpected, when the company made the jump to Android software many believed it to be a hail Mary that wouldn’t find the mark. Those predictions were painfully obvious when sales of their Android hardware were revealed. The company isn’t done just yet though, they are trying to refocus and re-imagine what the future BlackBerry will look like and right now hardware isn’t in that future.
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[button link=”http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/blackberry-reports-89-year-over-year-growth-gaap-software-services-revenue-q2-fiscal-nasdaq-bbry-2162080.htm” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: MarketWired[/button]Last Updated on January 23, 2017.
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