BlackBerry unveiled a new, cheaper smartphone on Tuesday as it tries to stem losses and win back customers in emerging economies where customers are gravitating toward devices powered by Google's Android operating system.
The device is being built under a partnership deal with FIH Mobile - the Hong Kong-listed unit of Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn.
The device, codenamed Jakarta, will first go on sale in Indonesia in April for under US$200, said John Chen, BlackBerry’s new chief executive, who took the reins at the company late last year.
BlackBerry also plans to launch a new tool for business and government customers to manage mobile devices on their networks, part of a drive by the one-time smartphone pioneer to focus on its profitable enterprise or services business.
The company said it would launch BlackBerry Enterprise Service 12, or BES12, to unify its existing platforms and provide clients with increased flexibility and security.
Following a decline in popularity of its once iconic devices, BlackBerry is striving to reinvent itself under the new chief executive.
It hopes that focusing on its enterprise business, which has long been a core strength, will help revive its fortunes, as its new line of BlackBerry 10 devices have failed to win back market share from iPhone and Android devices.
BlackBerry said BES12, which is to be launched by the end of 2014, will unify the existing BES10 and BES5 platforms that its clients currently use to manage mobile devices on their internal corporate and government networks.
While BES5 manages BlackBerry's older generation of devices, its BES10 offering allows clients to manage its new generation of devices powered by its BlackBerry 10 operating system, along with devices that run on Apple's iOS operating system and Google's market-leading Android operating system.
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