One of the world’s most recognisable phone brands might live again as BlackBerry has licensed its branding to be used by Chinese phone manufacturer TCL.
The deal will see TCL design, manufacture, and sell phones with the BlackBerry logo on it, with software and services on the phone coming from what’s left of the actual BlackBerry company.
This is the second legacy phone brand that TCL has got the license to in recent years after HP sold Palm to them in 2014, but it hasn’t done anything with that brand yet.
BlackBerry CEO John Chen
Licensing
TCL, who also own Alcatel, has already started to make BlackBerry devices, building two Android powered phones, the DTEK50 and DTEK60, that went on sale earlier this year.
BlackBerry saw its market share plummet over the last decade, going from 20% in 2009 to less than 0.1% now. The Canadian company has gone through major restructuring after it lost its market to iPhones and Android devices, adopting Android as its operating system of choice over its own BlackBerry OS.
Dropping hardware manufacturing is pretty much the final nail in the coffin for a company that made devices once seen as essential for any professional. The remnants of BlackBerry will now focus on building software and services that power the devices with its name on it.
