CEO John Chen said this week in an interview with Abu Dhabi's The National that two new BlackBerry smartphones are on the way: one with a physical keyboard, and another with a full touchscreen.
"The fact that we came out with a high end phone [as our first Android device] was probably not as wise as it should have been", Chen said.
Enterprise customers, he said, are asking for a US$400 mobe rather than the Priv's $700 price tag, so that's the market the company has in mind.
One of the two smartphones will sport a keypad like the traditional BlackBerry devices, and the other would be a complete touchscreen.
Pictured are prototypes of the "BlackBerry Hamburg" and the "BlackBerry Rome", both of which are described as "mid-range" devices, with "two new hardware features that haven't been on a BlackBerry before".
These two mid-range Android phones could very well be BlackBerry's last chance to revive the division.
"We're the only people who really secure Android, taking the security features of BlackBerry that everyone knows us for and making it more reachable for the market".
As for the BlackBerry's proprietary mobile operating system BB10, Chen said that they will continue to send out software updates, but they have no plans to release a new phone running the OS.
Chen acknowledges the problem in the pricing strategy saying, "We released our Android device just about when the high-end phone market went soft", and this is also the reason the company is now shifting focus to the mid-range segment.
BlackBerry offered 600,000 telephones of 2016 within the first 3 months models, that was significantly less than anticipated.
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Source: BlackBerry plans to release two mid-range Android smartphones this year
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