The BlackBerry update was scheduled to arrive in March

Apr 2, 2016 17:02 GMT  ·  By

BlackBerry announced its quarterly earnings a few days ago, and while the overall revenues were solid, the mobile division continues to bleed money.

Although the company’s CEO John Chen stated that they would try to turn BlackBerry’s hardware division into a profitable business, it looks like it’s not there yet. However, Chen gave his company until September 2016 to try and break even on smartphone sales, so there’s still time to make things work.

BlackBerry has decided to fully focus on Android, so aside from the PRIV launched last year, there will be at least one other mid-range smartphone powered by Google operating system by the end of 2016.

Going back several months ago, John Chen announced that BlackBerry 10.3.3 update should be available for eligible smartphones in Q1 2016. However, we’re already at the beginning of Q2 and BlackBerry hasn’t yet released the long-awaited upgrade.

During the company’s quarterly earning conference call yesterday, John Chen confirmed that “the 10.3.3 releases that we are all waiting for has been released and started the NIAD with the security certificate program, NIAD certification testing in Q1 as we have planned.

“With the official release pending technical acceptance targeted for mid-June, we are waiting on the certificate testing and this is a little outside of our control. A 10.3.4, the next release is already being planned for BB10 for later in the FY17 and early FY18.”

A Marshmallow beta build might arrive this month

But there is better news for Android fans, as the company hints to an imminent Marshmallow release for BlackBerry PRIV. As many of you probably know, the PRIV was launched back in November with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop operating system right out of the box.

According to Michael Clewley, director of Handheld Software Product Management at BlackBerry, the beta version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow for the PRIV should be available for download very soon. He also promised more information about the upgrade will be announced in the next couple of days.

The bottom line is Android 6.0 Marshmallow for BlackBerry PRIV won’t be available for everyone this month, but the Canadian company will release the update by the end of May.