BlackBerry weighs exit from handset business eyes investments

BlackBerry will consider exiting its handset business if it remains unprofitable, its chief executive said on Wednesday, as the technology company looks to expand its corporate reach with investments, acquisitions and partnerships.

"If I cannot make money on handsets, I will not be in the handset business," John Chen said, adding that the time frame for such a decision was short. He would not be more specific, but said it should be possible to make money off shipments of as few as 10 million devices a year.

At its peak, in its 2011 financial year, BlackBerry shipped 52.3 million devices. Last quarter, it recorded revenue on fewer than 2 million.

Chen, who took the helm of the struggling company in November, said BlackBerry was also looking to invest in or team up with other companies in regulated industries such as healthcare, and financial and legal services, all of which required highly secure communications.

He said small acquisitions to strengthen BlackBerry's network security offerings were also possible.

"We are building an engineering team on the service side that is focused on security," Chen said. "We are building an engineering team on the device side that is focused on security. We will do some partnerships and we will probably, potentially do [a merger and acquisition] on security."