Struggling smartphone maker Blackberry
has agreed a five-year deal with Foxconn,
the big Taiwan-based maker of electronic
products and components.
The two companies will initially work on the
development of a new smartphone.
Blackberry also announced on Friday a third-
quarter loss of $4.4bn (£2.7bn), including a
big write-down of assets.
The firm once dominated the smartphone
market, but has seen its fortunes fall in recent
years and last month abandoned an attempt to
find a buyer.
Blackberry recently appointed an interim chief
executive, John Chen, following the collapse of
a planned sale to its biggest shareholder,
Fairfax Financial Holdings.
"It's an absolutely essential deal for
Blackberry," Ben Wood, mobile analyst at
research firm CCS Insight, told the BBC.
"Foxconn gives them the scale they need to be
competitive, particularly in the Far Eastern
markets, such as Indonesia - Blackberry's
biggest market."
'Determination'
Blackberry has been hit by the success and
popularity of smartphones launched by rivals
such as Apple and Samsung. Its attempts to
boost its market share have not yielded the
desired results.
"This partnership demonstrates BlackBerry's
commitment to the device market for the
long-term and our determination to remain the
innovation leader in secure end-to-end mobile
solutions," said Mr Chen.
"Partnering with Foxconn allows BlackBerry to
focus on what we do best - iconic design,
world-class security, software development
and enterprise mobility management - while
simultaneously addressing fast-growing
markets leveraging Foxconn's scale and
efficiency that will allow us to compete more
effectively."
Foxconn is the world's largest manufacturer of
electronic products and components, and
already has extensive links with Apple as the
maker of the iPad and iPhone.
Meanwhile, Blackberry's quarterly results
continue to underline the company's struggle
to regain financial stability. Excluding the one-
time items and writedowns, the loss was
$354m.
Revenue fell to $1.19bn from $2.73bn as
increased uncertainty about the company's
fate led to further sales erosion.
A new line of devices that run on BlackBerry
10 software has failed to win back market
share.

Source: m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25461892