BlackBerry's future offerings will mostly come equipped with the company's hallmark physical keyboards, the struggling smarphone maker's interim chief executive officer John Chen said.

Waterloo, Canada-based BlackBerry, which was previously known as RIM, was once the world's top smartphone seller; but it lost most of its global market share to rivals like Samsung and Apple over the past few years. While BlackBerry's smartphones featured physical keyboards, consumers showed their preference for touchscreen phones.

The company tried to regain its lost share by touchscreen phones.  But even the all-touchscreen Z10 phone failed to appeal to consumers.

John Chen, BlackBerry's interim chief executive officer, said in a recent interview that the company's next wave of products would return to tried-&-true form factors, complete with physical keyboards.  However, Chen added that there were still a few touchscreen devices in the company's pipeline.

Chen stressed that the QWERTY keyboard was extremely important to the company, adding that he personally loved physical keyboards-equipped devices.  Speaking on the topic, Chen said, "I personally love the keyboards . so you will look to BlackBerry going forward doing keyboards; I wouldn't use the word 'exclusively,' but predominantly."

Chen said at least two ne wphysical keyboard-equipped smartphones were in the works at the manufacturing facilities of its partner Foxconn, but he didn't reveal when these handsets would appear.