OTTAWA — Struggling for relevance in the smartphone business, BlackBerry is turning to Google’s popular mobile software for a helping hand.

BlackBerry said on Friday that it would make a phone that runs the Android operating system, confirming a rumor that has been circulating for months. The company released another sour earnings report on Friday as well that underscored the importance of finding a successful product.

The move to Android should address at least one limitation of the appeal of BlackBerry’s smartphone: a lack of apps. The Android phone will be able to run the more than one million apps already created for that software.

The new BlackBerry phone is widely expected to have a large touch-screen face and a pullout physical keyboard. While he did not talk about the design, John S. Chen, the company’s chief executive, said the phone would be called the Priv, an allusion to privacy and privilege. He added that his company was working with Google to give it additional security compared with other Android phones.