John Chen says BlackBerry will release two mid-range Android smartphones this year, one of them with physical keyboard, admits Priv was too expensive
BlackBerry switches focus back on mid-range smartphone market — BlackBerry has switched its focus back to the mid-range smartphone market …
Context & Ripple Effects
BlackBerry's Android bet began as a premium play: after [[a:830062|sources reported it was considering Android while shifting focus to software and device management]], the company launched the Priv — the first recommendable BlackBerry in years per The Wall Street Journal's review of its keyboard and security — alongside weak Q2 results showing a 13-cents-per-share loss.
Chen is now conceding that premium pricing was the mistake: with the Priv confirmed at the end of 2015 on a loss-making quarter behind it, BlackBerry is refocusing on mid-range hardware, and the follow-through came a year later when TCL shipped the $549 KeyOne with the same physical-keyboard formula.
First-order effects
- BlackBerry's two planned mid-range Android devices put the physical keyboard — the Priv's best-reviewed feature — into cheaper handsets aimed directly at the volume segment Chen admits the $699-class Priv missed.
- John Chen publicly repositions the device business around price accessibility, an admission that constrains how aggressively BlackBerry can price future flagships against Samsung and Apple.
Second-order effects
- Moving downmarket pushes manufacturing toward partners like TCL, which materialized in the TCL-built $549 KeyOne running a Snapdragon chip rather than flagship silicon — outsourcing handset production while BlackBerry keeps brand and software.
- Android becomes BlackBerry's permanent platform rather than an experiment begun with the "Expanding Our World" announcement, ending any credible return to BB10 as the phone OS.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, BlackBerry completes its shift from hardware maker to licensed brand-plus-software company: keyboards and security branding on partner-built Android devices, with revenue increasingly tied to the device-management software push flagged back in 2015.
- The mid-range-with-a-differentiator niche (physical keyboard, security) becomes BlackBerry's only defensible smartphone position — a template for legacy brands surviving on licensing once they can no longer compete on specs or scale.
The trend: Struggling hardware brands are pivoting from premium proprietary devices to partner-manufactured, Android-based licensed hardware where brand assets like keyboards and security carry the margin.