BARCELONA, Spain – Blackberry on Tuesday announced a new phone aimed at young professionals.
The BlackBerry Leap smartphone was announced at a morning press conference at Mobile World Congress. The new phone features a 5-inch display and 2800 mAh battery that BlackBerry promises will fuel 25 hours of heavy use.
The new phone comes as BlackBerry shares were up on news that Sprint will begin reselling the Candian OEM’s BES12, as well as BBM Meetings, BBM Protected, and BlackBerry Blend enterprise products.
Investors also liked the high-profile nature of Samsung’s announcement that continues to work with BlackBerry on a variety of solutions, including the Samsung Knox’s support of BlackBerry’s expense management solution.
At Mobile World Congress, Blackberry also announced new features for its messaging product, as well a new encrypted calling service offered via Securesmart to customers on Vodafone in Germany.
Shares of BlackBerry were up just over 2 percent in after-market trading.