Blackberry has announced it will stop designing its own smartphones.
Ben Wood, of CCS Insight consultancy, says: "Blackberry can't keep producing its own phones indefinitely just to serve a small subset of its clients addicted to its home-grown devices."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Blackberry has struggled in recent years as first Apple took a stranglehold on the smartphone sector and then handsets operating on Google's Android platform, especially the likes of Samsung, proved hugely popular.
In the last quarter, Blackberry reported losses of $372m (£286m), compared with a profit of $51m (£39m) in the same period last year. However, even this was a long way off its 2010 peak, when it controlled 18.2 per cent of the global smartphone market.
The popularity of BlackBerry Messenger and its high-tech email system "made its phones a smash hit among young users and professionals alike," says the Daily Telegraph "but Apple's iPhone and Google's Android software, with millions of apps and full touchscreens, rendered them obsolete."
A move away from hardware has been on the cards for some years – in 2012, Blackberry announced it was changing its focus from the consumer market to business customers. It has launched several new phones, but failed to stem falling sales.
-
How clean-air efforts may have exacerbated global warmingUnder the Radar Air pollution artificially cooled the Earth, ‘masking’ extent of temperature increase
-
September 14 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include RFK Jr on the hook, the destruction of discourse, and more
-
Air strikes in the Caribbean: Trump’s murky narco-warTalking Point Drug cartels ‘don’t follow Marquess of Queensberry Rules’, but US military air strikes on speedboats rely on strained interpretation of ‘invasion’
-
Labour shortages: the ‘most urgent problem’ facing the UK economy right nowSpeed Read Britain is currently in the grip of an ‘employment crisis’
-
Will the energy war hurt Europe more than Russia?Speed Read European Commission proposes a total ban on Russian oil
-
Will Elon Musk manage to take over Twitter?Speed Read The world’s richest man has launched a hostile takeover bid worth $43bn
-
Shoppers urged not to buy into dodgy Black Friday dealsSpeed Read Consumer watchdog says better prices can be had on most of the so-called bargain offers
-
Ryanair: readying for departure from LondonSpeed Read Plans to delist Ryanair from the London Stock Exchange could spell ‘another blow’ to the ‘dwindling’ London market
-
Out of fashion: Asos ‘curse’ has struck againSpeed Read Share price tumbles following the departure of CEO Nick Beighton
-
Universal Music’s blockbuster listing: don’t stop me now…Speed Read Investors are betting heavily that the ‘boom in music streaming’, which has transformed Universal’s fortunes, ‘still has a long way to go’
-
EasyJet/Wizz: battle for air supremacySpeed Read ‘Wizz’s cheeky takeover bid will have come as a blow to the corporate ego’
