BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins: In Five Years There Will Be No Reason For Tablets

After the demise of the BlackBerry PlayBook, the company withdrew from any further endeavors in creating a tablet. BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins openly questioned the need for tablets Tuesday, and predicted their downfall in five years.

In January, Heins said he would consider following up on the tablet only if it could be profitable. The PlayBook took a dive a year after its launch in 2011, with the company only shipping as few as 150,000 in the third quarter of 2012.

Heins said that his primary interest at the moment is reinventing mobile communications.

"In five years, I see BlackBerry to be the absolute leader in mobile computing -- that's what we're aiming for," he said. "I want to gain as much market share as I can, but not by being a copycat."

The company has since launched a revamped phone, the Q10, which Heins said is showing signs of a promising start, according to BusinessWeek.

In the midst of Heins' comments, Apple and Samsung have made millions off of their respective tablets, the iPad and the Galaxy.

Still, the CEO may not be too far off as the decline of the iPod, after the introduction of the iPhone, shows that consumers don't see a need for redundancy in their mobile devices, according to the Atlantic.

Heins expects that there will someday be a product that can connect to any screen in a user's environment, from work to home.

BlackBerry slowly fell behind during this new gadget craze. Heins said in an interview that his focus was on positive introduction of new phones that significantly differ from what's already on the market in order to draw customers back.

After his comments, BlackBerry released a statement addressing questions about whether or not it would consider a future for tablets within the company, stating that its involvement in such plans remains uncertain.

"We continue to evaluate our tablet strategy, but we are not making any shifts in that strategy in the short term. When we do have information about our PlayBook strategy, we will share it," the statement read.