BlackBerry was as soon as on the prime of the smartphone market within the U.S. In 2010, nearly half of smartphone subscribers within the U.S. used BlackBerrys, in line with Comscore.Â
The telephones had been well-known for having a tactile keyboard and for BlackBerry’s superior cybersecurity — typically favored amongst companies and governments.
However after its telephones fell out of favor with customers, BlackBerry altered its course, taking among the cornerstones of the enterprise with it.
“After a number of years, we realized that we might by no means get the quantity up — and it is a quantity sport,” mentioned John Chen, CEO of BlackBerry. “And so we made that pivotal shift to a software-only firm and give attention to safety and cyber and issues of that kind.”
Whereas it stopped manufacturing phones, it did not go removed from the business.
“Presently, BlackBerry has two predominant enterprise models, a cybersecurity enterprise unit and an IoT enterprise unit throughout the cybersecurity enterprise unit,” mentioned Charles Eagen, chief expertise officer of BlackBerry.
Its cybersecurity unit focuses on securing issues akin to smartphone functions and cellular banking web sites. Its web of issues unit focuses on the communication of expertise inside related and autonomous automobiles.
“We now have the lion’s share of embedded software program in a lot of the automobiles,” Chen mentioned.
BlackBerry’s expertise is in roughly 215 million automobiles and this facet of BlackBerry is continuous to develop, in line with the corporate.
“If we have a look at the business alternative itself, it is our expectation that the auto software program business goes to roughly triple in measurement from 2020 via 2030,” mentioned Luke Junk, senior analyst at Baird.
Nonetheless, BlackBerry does face competitors within the cybersecurity business, and in 2021 its income from cybersecurity was $500 million.
“I feel that the corporate can attain probably a decrease peak than we have seen prior to now however a extra sustainable progress trajectory and doubtlessly extra worthwhile future as properly on a margin proportion foundation,” Junk mentioned.
CNBC visited BlackBerry’s Autonomous Automobile Innovation Middle and interviewed Chen to search out out what’s subsequent for the corporate.
