Article content continued

That said, Chen said he doesn’t see handsets, which have transformed into a commodity since BlackBerry’s reign a decade ago, as the future of the company that has pivoted towards software and security services.





“I personally do not believe devices is going to be the future of any company,” he said, instead pointing towards what runs on the devices and keeps them connected as the way forward for BlackBerry. Of the estimated three billion mobile phones in use around the world, company documents state there were about 23 million BlackBerry users as of March 2016.

Still, BlackBerry’s most recent offering — the Priv runs on an Android system — isn’t doing as well as the company hoped, Chen said. “Our one device is unfortunately too high end and is not moving as fast as we’d like,” he said.

It’s had success working with the Big Three Canadian wireless carriers, he said, but he still hears reports of younger employees at the retail level ignoring BlackBerry to push iPhones and Samsung due to better incentives.

“Our phones are not in high demand and they want to move volume. It is a mismatch of priorities in some way,” he said.

The company’s goal is to grow its software business fast enough to make up for the loss of service activation fees, a paradigm that is no longer supported, Chen added. It’s aiming for 30 per cent growth in the software category this year, he said.

While Chen may prefer to focus on BlackBerry’s new endeavours including enterprise software that runs on all devices and cyber security consulting, the questions at the AGM from loyal investors (and a brief interruption from one angry attendee) zeroed in on marketing the company’s devices.