The company sold 50 million phones in 2011, but sales have collapsed in the past decade. By the final quarter of 2016, it had a market share of 0pc with only 207,900 handsets sold.

The company then announced it would stop making its own phones and has since focused on security software for cars and businesses, licensing the BlackBerry name to other manufacturers.

In 2020 its chief executive John Chen said it would stop supporting older handsets running the BlackBerry 7.1 and 10 operating systems, which run on handsets dating back to 2011.

Despite BlackBerry’s decline, it retained a core of devoted users for several years who appreciated its physical keys and security.

In recent years, third-party manufacturers using the BlackBerry licence have released phones running Google’s Android operating system. A US start-up called OnwardMobility has announced plans to release a BlackBerry phone later this year.