How BlackBerry moved from iconic cellphones to cybersecurity

BlackBerry was as soon as on the prime of the smartphone market within the U.S. In 2010, virtually half of smartphone subscribers within the U.S. used BlackBerrys, based on Comscore. 

The telephones have 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 a few of the cornerstones of the enterprise with it.

“After a couple of years, we realized that we’d 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 deal with safety and cyber and issues of that kind.”

Whereas it stopped manufacturing telephones, it did not go removed from the trade.

“At the moment, BlackBerry has two major enterprise items, a cybersecurity enterprise unit and an IoT enterprise unit inside the cybersecurity enterprise unit,” mentioned Charles Eagen, chief expertise officer of BlackBerry.

Its cybersecurity unit focuses on securing issues akin to smartphone purposes and cellular banking web sites. Its web of issues unit focuses on the communication of expertise inside linked and autonomous vehicles.

“We now have the lion’s share of embedded software program in many of the vehicles,” Chen mentioned.

BlackBerry’s expertise is in roughly 215 million vehicles and this facet of BlackBerry is constant to develop, based on the corporate.

“If we take a look at the trade alternative itself, it is our expectation that the auto software program trade goes to roughly triple in dimension from 2020 by 2030,” mentioned Luke Junk, senior analyst at Baird.

Nevertheless, BlackBerry does face competitors within the cybersecurity trade, and in 2021 its income from cybersecurity was $500 million.

“I believe that the corporate can attain seemingly a decrease peak than we have seen prior to now however a extra sustainable progress trajectory and doubtlessly extra worthwhile future as nicely on a margin share foundation,” Junk mentioned.

CNBC visited BlackBerry’s Autonomous Automobile Innovation Heart and interviewed Chen to search out out what’s subsequent for the corporate.

Watch the video to study extra.