BlackBerry to restore physical keyboards and offer encrypted BBM services for businesses

CEO admits the company has spread itself "a little too thin" by chasing the consumer market

BlackBerry has announced three-month losses of nearly $1bn (Getty Images)

Ailing smartphone manufacturer BlackBerry has announced it will be launching two new handsets to recover its lost market share.

The first, called the Z3, will be a touch screen device that will go on sale in Indonesia in April for “less than $200” while the second, dubbed the Q20 or ‘Classic’, will reintroduce the Canadian company’s popular physical Qwerty keyboard.

“Almost everyone I’ve met, in government, enterprise, loves the keyboard, but it turns out what they love just as much is the little belt above the keyboard that held the trackpad and buttons,” said chief executive John Chen speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “So we decided to listen to customers, and give them what they want.”

The company will also be looking to capitalise on its solid reputation amongst regulated industries such as government and healthcare. These demographics rely on BlackBerry devices for their no-frills approach to productivity and their data security and Chen said that the company would be exploring more opportunities building highly targeted devices.

“We are still committed to the device business, but one of our turnaround strategies is to focus on enterprise, the regulated industry and our server business,” said Chen. “Eventually we could build a phone for the healthcare industry, and other verticals.”

This new focus will include an initiative named “BBM Protected”, a subscription version of the company’s popular messenger app that will offer a highly-encrypted service for business users who need secure messaging. The company also touted its limited app store, noting that this was a result of its high security requirements, and a bonus for users.

Chen, who took over the company 90 days ago after a buyout led by Fairfax Financial collapsed, admitted that the company had spread itself “a little too thin” by focusing “on the consumer” but that he would be working to stem the company’s substantial losses and win back customers.