BlackBerry may leave the handset market in 2017

After countless rumors about BlackBerry leaving the consumer market or being purchased by other big names in the industry, it looks like the company formerly known as RIM is still around. Unfortunately, the future remains uncertain, and 2016 will be a crucial year for them.

According to the company's CEO John Chen, BlackBerry needs to sell no less than 5 million handsets during 2016 to return a profit. "Sometime next year we have to make our device business profitable, otherwise I have to rethink what I do there. My job is to make sure the value of the company is protected and increases," he said.

If BlackBerry Priv succeeds in keeping the company afloat, the next step could be to discontinue BlackBerry OS and continue with Android alone. Chen claims this would only happen if they can bring all the security features of BB 10 to Android, and that may take a while. 

Next to BlackBerry, Sony is also expected to exit the market if 2016 does not meet their expectations. Remains to see what future holds for both of them.