BlackBerry Pivots to Cars and Robots as Shares Double, CEO Says

"While the products that we offer to our customers around the world can't necessarily be held in the palm of your hands like the old devices, those values of security, trust and innovation still shine through in the software and services and the other solutions that we deliver to the market today," Giamatteo told CNBC.

Two businesses drive most of BlackBerry's revenue. The first is secure communications, which sells encrypted products to customers such as governments. The second is QNX, which provides operating systems and embedded software for cars, underpinning features from braking systems to semi-autonomous driving functions. QNX is embedded in 275 million vehicles, according to BlackBerry.

Giamatteo sees QNX as key to a future in "physical AI," a term encompassing autonomous cars and robotics. The same high safety standards required for vehicles could apply to robots, he said. He specified that he is not talking about humanoid robots, but rather robots in industrial, factory or medical settings. Robotics is one of the company's "fastest-growing businesses inside the QNX portfolio," the CEO said.

BlackBerry is already making money from the sector. The company has a backlog of QNX orders worth $950 million, and "a portion of that is robotics," Giamatteo said, without disclosing specific robotics figures.

BlackBerry was once one of the world's biggest phone makers, and BBM was a fixture of early smartphone culture. After the iPhone launched in 2007, BlackBerry fought to keep its consumer mobile division alive but ultimately lost. Its reinvention has been remarkable, and for now investors seem to be embracing the new direction.