BlackBerry will be announcing its Q1 financial results on June 19th and we’ll see how the company has fared over the past three months. While the only smartphone to be released in the quarter was the Z3 in Indonesia, BlackBerry did announce Internet of Things (IoT)-focused Project Ion and updates to BBM on all platforms.
It’s known that BlackBerry will re-launch the Bold 9900 soon at a hefty price of $399, with three other high-end devices in the pipeline. Coming back to the tablet space with the PlayBook was ruled out by CEO John Chen, but he recently said they could have plans for a phablet.
During an interview with the Jakarta Times, Chen declared, “If we will do another thing, we will probably go to phablet. I think if you look at our strategy and if you look at where the market goes, there is definitely a good market for something between a phone and tablet. I think the phablet could be early, the tablet is already late. That is not a bad thing, because you can bring new technology. But, if I have the opportunity I will go to phablet… we will build what the market wants.”
A recent report by Canalys showed devices with a screen above 5.5-inches accounted for approximately 12% of mobile phone shipments in Q1 2014. Considering BlackBerry’s focus on enterprise customers, a bigger smartphone/tablet would service this demographic well. Most manufacturers, such as Samsung, Sony, LG, Huawei, Nokia, all have ‘phablets’ available for sale. The largest BlackBerry 10 smartphone currently available is the 5-inch Z30.
Source: Jarkarta Times
Via: PhoneArena
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