BlackBerry revealed a new physical keyboard-equipped device, which is expected to bring the Canada-based company back to its roots and lure back traditional customers. The company said that it is planning to work in collaboration with different carriers all over the world in order to reach more customers.
The new phone by BlackBerry is currently available on the companys website and also through Amazon.com Inc.
This is the fourth handset release by the company this year and comes as part of its strategy to turn round by getting its business customers back, considering they have deserted it over the last years to shift to some of its competitors.
The Chief Executive Officer of BlackBerry, John Chen, said in a statement, cited by the Financial Times: “When I went to visit the CEOs of top banks in [New York], a lot of them pulled out their old BlackBerrys and said: ‘Don’t mess around with this’. I listened.”
BlackBerry unveiled its Classic smartphone, which is equipped with traditional qwerty keyboard, trackpad and call and hang-up buttons placed below a touch screen. This is seen as a return to the Canada-based handset manufacturer to phones with keyboards after it shifted its focus towards producing phones exclusively with touch screens.
The new smartphone device is unveiled at a moment when BlackBerry is trying to boost its sales and return to profit by following a policy of aiming at professional and business customers.
The company has long been dominating on the global smartphone market, but many carriers stopped supporting it because it lost the support of many of its customers, who preferred to shift to competitors such as Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc.
According to the official announcement by the company at the New York event that took place yesterday, BlackBerry is to sell its Classic smartphone at the price of $449 in the U.S. and CA$499 ($429) in Canada. The device will be distributed and sold by Rogers Communications Inc., Telus Corp. and BCE Inc. in its home market. In the U.S., BlackBerrys Classic will be carried by Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc.
However, some analysts expressed concerns that the new device of the company will not be well-accepted on the market. Lawrence Lundy, an analyst at the research firm Frost & Sullivan, commented for the Wall Street Journal: “The fact that U.S. carriers won’t stock the Classic until the new year is a further sign that BlackBerry holds no power in the market anymore.”
BlackBerry was up 5.25% to close at CA$11.62 per share yesterday, marking a one-year increase of 79.32%. The company is valued at CA$5.83 billion.
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