India is a small but growing market for BlackBerry’s IoT biz, says exec

QNX, the IoT business of BlackBerry, is expanding its presence in India, both in terms of go-to-market strategies and capability development. Over the last four years of its operations in India, the company has expanded to a base of more than 100 professionals, further solidified by the launch of the IoT Centre of Excellence in Hyderabad last year. 

This CoE is now QNX’s largest such hub outside of its home country, Canada, said Dhiraj Handa, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Asia-Pacific, in an interview with TechCircle.

To be sure, BlackBerry, formerly a dominant smartphone brand, pivoted to IoT and cybersecurity businesses in the last decade. Its IoT division was relaunched under QNX earlier this year in a bid to fortify the leadership within the automotive and embedded industries. It offers real-time operating systems (RTOS), hypervisors, and development tools for safety-critical embedded systems, particularly in the automotive, medical, robotics, and industrial sectors. While automotive remains the hottest growth domain for QNX, it is also increasing its footprint in medical, robotics, and industrial sectors, where it currently sees a ‘double-digit’ growth, according to Handa.

Handa added that the rebranding of the IoT division enhances QNX’s visibility as a standalone brand not only in automotive but also across mission-critical and embedded systems.

“On the investment front, the Hyderabad center plays a critical role in building capabilities, both in R&D and engineering services. Similar, though smaller, initiatives are being carried out in China, Japan, Korea, North America, and Europe. As the business grows, resources are being added incrementally across expert R&D, engineering services, and go-to-market functions,” he said. 

QNX provides the foundational software infrastructure over which original equipment manufacturers (such as BMW, Tata Motors, and Mahindra and Mahindra) and value-added integrators (KPIT, Tata Elxsi, and Sasken) build the applications. QNX’s infrastructure, today, enables over 225 million cars. Within India, QNX’s solution was first embedded in Mahindra's XUV700 SUV.

This year, QNX made two key partnership announcements with electronics manufacturing service company VVDN and railway tech firm Medha. With VVDN, QNX is building an integrated platform for software-defined vehicles, e-mobility solutions, and autonomous driving. Whereas, QNX will be providing Medha the software foundation for the railway protection system to be deployed across various monorail and metro rail projects throughout India.

“India is emerging as a significant market. Though currently a smaller contributor to the global business, the company expects rapid growth over the next 5–10 years, similar to how the China market scaled,” said Handa.

BlackBerry is set to announce its second-quarter results this week. In the previous quarter, the company posted revenue of $121.7 million, slightly down 1.4% year over year but above its own guidance. The company guided second-quarter revenue between $115 million and $125 million. For the full year, it raised its revenue forecast to $508–538 million, up from earlier guidance. 

Speaking about geopolitical tensions impacting QNX’s business, Handa said that it is a wait-and-watch game right now. “The immediate impact is more pronounced on OEMs, particularly if tariffs restrict shipments. Since QNX earns royalties per car shipped, any reduction affects the broader supply chain. While some of the impact is currently being absorbed, it remains too early to assess fully. However, QNX’s global scope allows it to balance demand shifts across regions,” he concluded.