Telecom
BlackBerry May Abandon Physical Handset for Cyber Security
With losses at £2.7bn, John Chen, interim chief executive must find a new way forward as Bloomberg Businessweek magazine’s cover showed a range of archaeological objects – a flint arrowhead, a skull – and a BlackBerry handset, which labels the company as still in the woods.
Meanwhile, Chen has already outlined a new strategy for the Canadian company in which he acknowledged that making smartphones was a thing of the past. As an alternative, the company will focus on intangible services such as offering cyber-security for businesses and not making physical handsets.
Making smartphones has not been a good business for anyone who isn’t Apple and Samsung recently, as they have squeezed the profits out of the rest of the industry, according to a report by Guardian of UK. BlackBerry, however, last Friday announced a loss of $4.4bn (£2.7bn) on revenues of just $1.2bn; only a tax rebate of $624m saved its net figures from being worse.
Those three months to the end of November marked a turning point: for the first time, BlackBerry now gets more money – 53% of revenues – from selling “services” such as sending data including email and web pages, than it does from selling handsets, which generated 40%. Software made up the other 7%.
But that has come as the company’s revenues have shrunk to levels smaller than at any time since May 2007, and the number of phones shipped, 1.9m, is the smallest since December 2006. BlackBerry, whose founders laughed at the iPhone’s lack of a keyboard, is out of the smartphone race.
In future Foxconn, which makes the iPhone, will co-design and manufacture BlackBerrys too, and hold the stock. BlackBerry will effectively become a reseller of its own phones.
“The smartphone business is brutal,” said Kevin Restivo, global smartphone analyst at the research company IDC. “It’s one where the big players – Samsung, Apple, and a few Chinese companies – are going to have success, and the others are scratching for crumbs.”
Andy Perkins, an analyst at Société Générale, told Bloomberg: “At some point it becomes uneconomic to make handsets in such small quantities.”
Chen is a turnaround artist. He was brought in to the software company Sybase, where he executed a successful reorganisation.
Since taking over barley two months ago, he has overseen a number of departures of existing senior executives, and hired some former colleagues. The obvious conclusion is that he is reshaping BlackBerry as a services and software company.
Unlike other struggling smartphone makers, BlackBerry can fall back on tens of millions of customers in large businesses, who rely on the security of its products. Chan said that 80% of Blackberry users were business customers.
That could be anywhere up to 50 million users worldwide, offering a substantial base for rebuilding any corporation, even the struggling BlackBerry.
But the data also confirmed that BB10, the operating system launched in January by Heins, has been a flop. Since March, BlackBerry’s customers have bought a total of around 17m phones, but only 5.6m have been BB10 devices.
The new products have fared poorly with consumers and the large businesses that rely on BlackBerry. Consumers have been turned off because the BB10 functions differently from the old BB7 model, while businesses have backed away because BB10 devices can’t be hooked up to the older BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) systems so many big customers use.
So while consumers have dumped them in favour of other makes, BlackBerry-using businesses have taken one of two paths: either sourcing old BB7 handsets to keep their existing users happy, or abandoning BlackBerry altogether.
Even Goldman Sachs, once a BlackBerry fortress, has begun letting some executives use iPhones for email, a move that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
Chen has an answer to both. For consumers, BlackBerry will try to somehow make money from the millions of people who have downloaded the BBM messaging software and installed it on to iPhones and Android phones.
“Revenues might come from a per-user per-month model, or rolling out advertising,” he said on Friday. “We’re a long way from knowing how to do it.”
For businesses he will offer “mobile device management” software that will be able to control not just BlackBerrys, but also iPhones and Android phones.
But there are plenty of rivals there, and it’s not a big business – worth only about $560m (£343m) this year globally for all vendors, and growing at 12% annually, according to ABI Research. Even if a reshaped BlackBerry captures more than half of that, it would still look tiny compared to what it was.
That means, said IDC’s Restivo, that, “BlackBerry’s not out of the woods yet.” He explains: “First and foremost, Chen needs to figure out how to make money from products that have a significant customer base and are growing. The handset business isn’t growing. And how they’re going to generate significant revenue from BES and BBM, and create a company driven by those two parallel paths – right now, the path isn’t clear.”
MTN Nigeria is accelerating investments in network expansion and modernization to address rising demand for mobile and data services across the country.
The operator is deploying additional base stations, upgrading existing infrastructure, and expanding fiber connectivity to improve network capacity, coverage, and service quality.
The investments are designed to support increasing smartphone adoption, higher data consumption, and the growing use of digital services by consumers and businesses.
MTN said the expansion aligns with its long-term strategy to enhance customer experience while strengthening Nigeria’s digital infrastructure.
The company expects the ongoing upgrades to improve connectivity, support economic growth, and enable broader access to reliable telecommunications services as demand for high-speed broadband continues to increase.
Airtel Africa’s CEO, Sunil Taldar, has announced the telco’s commitment to connecting 5,000 schools across its operating countries in Africa to the internet by 2027 through its philanthropic arm, Airtel Africa Foundation, in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
So far, the $57m partnership, which was launched in 2021, has cumulatively connected 3,296 schools and provided access to over 2 million learners and about 40,000 teachers. 64 digital learning platforms have been zero-rated thereby enabling more than 11m users to access educational content at no cost.
Speaking during a visit to St. Monica’s Girls School in Lusaka, which is one of the 300 schools already connected to the internet in Zambia, the Airtel Africa CEO stated that the initiative is having a profound impact on the quality of education by expanding access to digital learning resources for African children, in collaboration with governments.
Mr Taldar added: “Students are accessing best-in-class education from the curriculum developed by UNICEF in partnership with various Ministries of Education and provided through Airtel’s connectivity.
“We are also training teachers, so that they deliver digital education effectively. We aim to continue deepening meaningful connectivity in schools by providing free internet access, zero‑rated platforms and training teachers across the continent”.
Expressing her appreciation, the Headmistress of St. Monica’s Girls’ School, Sr Matilda Soloko said: “Being among the first schools connected in the initial stage, our learners have been able to study using the learning portal and their studies have been intensified. We remain grateful to Airtel and UNICEF.”
UNICEF’s Country Representative for Zambia, Dr Saja Farooq Abdullah said: “What this partnership has brought is really bridging the equality gap and the digital divide. It is making sure that every child learns wherever they are. It was exciting and interesting to see and hear from the girls how they can learn at their own pace, how they can review the materials, and how they do their homework with comfort.
The Director of Secondary Education in Zambia’s Ministry of Education, Yvonne Mwemba Chuulu lauded UNICEF and Airtel for the partnership saying: “At the Ministry of Education, we cannot do it alone, and we are grateful for the partnership that we have today.
“Our children are able to learn in a blended fashion, where we have a teacher who is also employing digital devices. We have also heard from the learners that they are able to access the portal when they are at home, which is a good thing because our learners continue to learn in the comfort of their homes”.
The School Connection programme is expanding digital learning to learners in 13 countries: Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. By equipping these schools with internet connectivity and training teachers on using the digital tools, it is providing children, particularly in underserved and remote regions, with the digital tools and skills they need to thrive.
Airtel Africa Foundation is advancing inclusive development across four strategic pillars, Financial Inclusion, Education, Environmental Sustainability and Digital Inclusion.
MultiChoice has officially become a wholly owned subsidiary of French media company Canal+, marking the completion of one of the largest acquisitions in Africa’s media and entertainment industry.
The integration brings the South Africa-based pay television operator under the full ownership of Canal+, a global media group with operations in 70 countries.
Announcing the completion of the transaction on Thursday, Chief Executive Officer of Canal+ Africa and MultiChoice, David Mignot, described the development as the beginning of a new phase of growth for the broadcaster.
“MultiChoice is now a full subsidiary of a truly international media group operating in 70 countries.
“The group was founded in France, is listed in London and Johannesburg, and has a strong African presence with operations in more than 45 countries,” Mignot said.
The acquisition combines Canal+’s international operations with MultiChoice’s extensive footprint across sub-Saharan Africa, where it serves millions of households through its DStv and GOtv platforms, as well as the Showmax streaming service.
According to Canal+, the integration will strengthen MultiChoice’s competitive position by giving it access to broader financial resources, technology, content partnerships and operational expertise.
The company said the combined business would increase investment in local content production, sports broadcasting and streaming services as competition intensifies from global platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+.
The transaction is also expected to provide MultiChoice with greater access to international markets at a time when traditional pay television operators are adapting to changing consumer viewing habits and the rapid growth of digital streaming platforms.
Canal+ has expanded steadily across Africa over the past decade and now assumes full control of a business operating in more than 45 African countries, further strengthening its position in the continent’s media and entertainment sector.
The acquisition followed Canal+’s gradual increase in its shareholding in MultiChoice, which began in 2024.
After exceeding the regulatory threshold, the company launched a mandatory offer in April 2024 to acquire the remaining shares of the Johannesburg-listed broadcaster.
Following regulatory approvals and shareholder acceptance, Canal+ secured control of MultiChoice in 2025 before completing the process that has now made the company a wholly owned subsidiary.
Industry observers describe the acquisition as one of the most significant media transactions involving an African company, reflecting a broader trend of consolidation as global entertainment firms seek greater scale to compete in the streaming era.
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