The Canadian Company Blackberry has finally announced that it would stop manufacturing and design their mobile devices. The Company confirmed that it had signed a deal with China’s TCL Communication Technology to make its branded future smartphones.
The Canadian company Black Beery Limited was dropping hints since September this year and finally it has come up with a decision of dropping. TCL is the Chinese Hardware maker behind brands like Alcatel. However, Blackberry confirmed that TCL would make and sell its branded future smartphones globally.
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The company also said, “The devices made by TCL which also makes Alcatel-branded mobile phones will be coupled with blackberry’s security software and service suite.”
In a press meet, Blackberry announced its formal long-term agreement with TCL, which says that TCL will be taking care of its design, manufacturing and marketing part. However, Blackberry is still working on licensing its security software and applications such as the Blackberry hub.
Moreover, this decision of the Canadian mobile company is not surprising at all because TCL had already associated with Blackberry for making two mobile devices Blackberry DTEK50 and DTEK60. Both the devices were spin-off designs by Alcatel, which means that we might get to see a similar strategy for the upcoming phones.
Now, TCL will be the exclusive international manufacturer and supplier of all future Blackberry-branded smartphones, except a few markets, namely India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Still, it is unclear what the company has planned for those exceptional countries? Maybe a different hardware partner will take care of making and vending phones over there.
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Ralph Pini, Chief Operating Officers (COO) and General Manager of Mobility Solutions at Blackberry, said, “The deal with chinese company signifies a crucial step in our plan to focus on putting the ‘Smart in the Phone’ by providing up-to-date safety and device software on a platform that mobile users prefer and are comfortable with. We already associated with them and got success with it. We hope TCL will address the needs of Blackberry users and enlarge the availability of Blackberry products throughout the world.”
Blackberry’s revenue from the software and services was $156 million in its latest quarter, down from $166 million in the prior quarter.