In a somewhat expected twist in the plot, BlackBerry phones will continue to live on – and we know that this is a sad situation for some of us. But be that as it may, after the Canadian company announced that it will stop manufacturing phones, it handed over the baton to China-based manufacturer TCL. From now on, TCL will be making and selling BlackBerry branded phones.
This is not surprising at all, since TCL has already partnered with BlackBerry to make two recent phones, the DTEK50 and DTEK60. What will be interesting to see is the strategy that TCL will take, given that they also manufacture another brand of smartphone, which is Alcatel. The DTEK50 and DTEK60 were actually rebranded Alcatel phones.
BlackBerry’s official announcement said that TCL will from now moving forward “design, manufacture, sell and provide customer support for BlackBerry-branded mobile devices.” BlackBerry will continue to “license its security software and service suite, as well as related brand assets to TCL Communication.”
So BlackBerry is quitting, but not all the way. We will still see BlackBerry phones in the market, although we are unsure what kind of impact these rebranded phones will have. 2017 will be an interesting year for BlackBerry, all things considered.
SOURCE: BlackBerry
