Buoyant Blackberry boss says iPhone users are "wall huggers"

Having been defeated by Apple in more or less aspect of its business, Blackberry has decided to mock its rival over the iPhone’s battery life.

Yahoo reports that chief executive John Chen told conference attendees that he calls [iPhone owners] wall huggers” due to their need to stay near a wall socket to charge their phones at the end of the day.

Chen has since assuming duties at Blackberry in November overseen a 50 per cent rise in the company’s share price and outsourced handset manufacturing to Foxconn to reduce inventory risks.

He recently found himself engulfed in a war of words with T-Mobile boss John Legere after the mobile operator emailed its Blackberry-owning customers with a trade-in offer to switch brands.

The Blackberry boss said it was a clearly inappropriate and ill-conceived marketing promotion”. Legere responded by saying that 94 per cent of customers who participated in the deal swapped to a rival mobile platform.