BlackBerry To Launch Two Mid-Range Android Smartphone In 2016: CEO John Chen | News World India

BlackBerry plans to launch two new android smartphones this year, as their Priv failed to live up to expectations.

In an interview with The National, CEO John Chen put his intention to launch two new android devices but did not disclose any time frame.

Chen admitted in the interview that launching the Priv at a high end price was not a wise decision.

The device started off at $700 and its price was later dropped to $649 in face of consumer demand. However, the $50 cut was too little too late and Priv sales dropped to just 600,000 units in the last quarter.

It is expected that two new phones will be priced at much lower rates. Codenamed Rome and Hamburg, both the devices will run Android and will be likely to fall in the neighbourhood of $500.

According to the report, Chen has said that one smartphone will sport a full touchscreen and the other will come with a QWERTY keyboard. In terms of specs, nothing else was mentioned.

Blackberry recently announced to have sold 600,000 handsets during the past three months till March end, which was lower than 850,000 units predicted by analysts.

BlackBerry seems to be working quite hard to get back into the mainstream as a contender