CEO John Chen Says BlackBerry’s Smartphone Will One Day Become Profitable

BlackBerry isn’t finished yet, and a comeback is in the works. That’s the word from BlackBerry’s CEO, who not only thinks that the ailing company has the potential to rebuild, but believes that the BlackBerry smartphone will be integral to its success.

Believe it or not, BlackBerry managed to turn a profit in Q4 of last year and it still has a (very tiny) market for the BlackBerry. Although the square-ish, button-laden phones aren’t creating any real competition to the iPhone or Android smartphones right now, they still have a following among security-minded customers.

“If you look at the U.S. Army, they’re still rolling out all BlackBerry,” CEO John Chen told Business Insider recently. “If I tell them there are no more phones, I lose that account. The question is how do you make phones profitable at the volume those people represent?”

BlackBerry still makes phones for consumers, but if it pulls itself from the edge of the cliff, it will likely do so by providing communications security for businesses and government organizations. BlackBerry can provide security for companies that use the iPhone and other smartphones, but it sees the BlackBerry (for which it believes it can provide the strongest security) as key to getting companies onboard.