BlackBerry Ltd CEO John Chen Hints At Potential BBM Sale

Updated on

John Chen, chief executive officer of BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) intimated a potential spin-off or sale of the company’s instant messaging platform, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) during an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Chen emphasized that he is considering all options for the benefit of shareholders in his efforts to revive the profitability of the struggling Canadian smartphone manufacturer. According to him, “Running a public company, anything to help our shareholders I need to take a very serious look at.”

Although he is weighing a sale or spin-off as one of his options to help turnaround BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB), Chen said it’s too early to think about it. According to him, at present, the company needs to build up the base and innovation model of BBM.

BBM still popular

BBM has remained popular among users despite the failure of the latest BlackBerry smartphones introduced by the Canadian smartphone manufacturer in the market. It has more than 85 million active users. BBM is the leading free app in 35 countries on Google Play and in 107 countries in AppStoreSM.

Faster and more secure

Chen pointed out that BBM is faster, more secure, and offers more features than its competitors in the instant messaging space. BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) recently added several features to BBM including the BBM Voice, BBM Channels, BBM Stickers among others.

Today, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) introduced eBBM Suite, a new family of products and services tailored to meet the needs of its enterprise customers as well as the needs of its broad end user.

According to Thad White, director of BBM for Business, BBM Protected is the first solution that will be offered by the company this summer. BBM Protected offers various security features such as end-to-end encryption of messages.

“While BBM has always been an amazing productivity and collaboration solution that puts control of contacts and personal information directly into people’s hands, regulated industries and security conscious organizations will now have unparalleled security features that allow IT administrators to give employees a powerful collaboration platform that understands, respects and provides the boundaries they need in place to keep business running,” said White.

BBM is available on iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) devices. It will soon become available on Windows Phones. Chen is confident that BBM’s potential is “going to be huge.”

Leave a Comment