TCL Communication and BlackBerry have announced that they will end their collaboration on 31 August 2020. This means that the largest and one of the few manufacturers that brought BlackBerry phones on the market is quitting. The end of BlackBerry phones is obvious again.
TCL's BlackBerry phones were known under the serial name KEY. The KEYone was succeeded by the KEY2 and also got a LE version. Despite their striking appearance with iconic BlackBerry keyboard, they were never really successful. The KEYone was even in the news negatively because of the undersized mounting of the screen in the housing.
Angry tongues claim it never really buttered between TCL and BlackBerry. We ourselves often witnessed this when we tapped an article about a new model. We invariably had the BlackBerry press people in the inbox who wanted all kinds of adjustments in which it became clear that TCL was the maker of the models, not them. As if they were ashamed of it. This will no longer be necessary, because from 31 August 2020 TCL Communications will no longer sell BlackBerry models. They are also not allowed to release new models. Existing models will be maintained until 31 August 2022.
End smartphone adventure?
In addition to TCL, BB Merah Putih from Indonesia and Optiemus Infracom from India also have the right to make BlackBerry phones. However, these are often released in those countries, where BlackBerry is still relatively popular. In the West in the company already overtaken by Apple and Samsung and played the bad and role in the margin. Meanwhile, BlackBerry mainly focuses on software and that may mean (again) an end to the smartphone adventure.
