The BlackBerry is a brand of wireless handheld devices and services produced and marketed by BlackBerry, formerly known as Research In Motion. Pioneered in 1999, the BlackBerry was the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people that needed to send and receive emails on the move. However, the debut of the Apple's iPhone in 2007 and the subsequent introductions of Android-powered devices like the Samsung Galax smartphones hammered the market share of the BlackBerry devices.

In August 2013, BlackBerry offered to sell itself in part or whole to a third party company due to persistent operational losses. In September 2013, the company announced it would lay off 4,500 employees, or 40 percent of its global workforce, as it reported a nearly $1 billion second-quarter loss in a surprise early release of earnings results.

The first BlackBerry device, an email pager, was released in 1999. The most recent BlackBerry devices are the Z30, Z10, Q10 and Q5. The Z10 and Q10 were announced on January 30, 2013, and the Q5 was announced on May 14, 2013. The user interface varies by model; most had featured a physical QWERTY keyboard, while newer generations have relied on a multi-touch screen and virtual keyboard.