Can QWERTY Keyboards Help BlackBerry Win Back Market Share?

BlackBerry believes a physical QWERTY keyboard and trackpad will give the brand the competitive edge as it struggles to return to relevancy in an industry that it pioneered not too long ago.

The new device — called the BlackBerry Q20 — will be easy to operate with one hand and feature ‘Menu’, ‘Back’, ‘Send’ and ‘End’ buttons along with a QWERTY keyboard and the trademark integrated trackpad that once made BlackBerry a dominant smartphone brand. BlackBerry say the move to develop a high-end QWERTY device was the result of feedback from “millions of passionate QWERTY customers around the world”. The Q20 will also feature a 3.5-inch touchscreen — the largest ever fitted on a QWERTY BlackBerry smartphone — and will be made from premium materials and designed for reliability and durability.

From cheap QWERTY phones to full touchscreen phones to ultra-expensive limited edition phones, BlackBerry have experimented with almost everything in an attempt to turn its fortunes around but nothing seem to be working. In fact things could be getting worse as the brand continue to loose critical market share in emerging Asian markets like Indonesia where it was once dominant.

Primarily targeted at business users, it’s going to be interesting to see if BlackBerry’s strategy to return back to its root with the Q20 will improve the brand’s troubling financial performance.

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