Road worthy
BLACKBERRY’S QNX SOFTWARE SYSTEM NOW IN 120 MILLION VEHICLES, COMPANY SAYS.
BlackBerry Ltd.’s technology may not be in as many pockets these days, but it is parked in millions of garages.
The smartphone-turned-software company’s QNX software is used in 120 million cars on the road today, BlackBerry announced Wednesday at the TU-Automotive Detroit conference.
That’s double the 60 million figure the company touted for the past three years as brands including Audi, BMW, Jaguar Land Rover and Toyota sign up to use software for infotainment systems, acoustics and dashboard functions.
“That figure has doubled as the world’s leading automakers, their tier one suppliers, and chip manufacturers have put their trust in BlackBerry,” BlackBerry chief executive John Chen said in a statement.
“As cars are increasingly driven by software, our customers and partners rely on BlackBerry QNX technologies to provide them with the safety-certified and secure technology platform on which the future of the automotive industry is being built.”
BlackBerry said that Strategy Analytics, a research and industry analyst firm, verified the 120 million number. The verification was based on the number of QNX products shipped and the number of cars that contain QNX products and technology.
In-car software has become one of BlackBerry’s key business units after the company shed its smartphone business to focus on software for enterprises, vehicles and the Internet of Things. It said the vast majority of QNX software products are licensed on a perunit royalty basis.
Investors have reacted positively to BlackBerry’s foray into the automotive market, although the company’s revenue remains nowhere near its heyday when it dominated the smartphone market a decade ago.
Still, its focus on security has appealed to investors, sending its stock price up drastically over the past year.
In that vein, BlackBerry launched three new safetycertified car software products at the conference in Detroit on Wednesday. It pitched the products as a way to speed up development of connected and selfdriving cars.