Goodbye to Blackberry smartphone
Blackberry is one of the brands of mobile phones that was once the dream of all people, just like Nokia. But, it seems that the fate of these two well-known brands will be more or less the same end. Nokia waved first, now turn to Blackberry which will soon say goodbye.
The reason, TLC, which has been known as a cellphone manufacturer, has confirmed it will stop the production of Blackberry smartphones, as reported by the BBC.
The news has even been confirmed also by the Blackberry official Twitter account, Monday (03/02) local time. They said that starting August 31, 2020, Blackberry phones will be stopped production and sales by TLC.
“We regret to announce that starting August 31, 2020, TLC Communication will not sell Blackberry-branded mobile devices,” the announcement said.
Even so, TLC can ensure that the club will continue to serve after-sales service from consumers with a deadline until August 22, 2022. That is, for those of you who have problems with BlackBerry phones that are still under warranty, can submit claims until that date.
For information, TLC itself has indeed started being a Blackberry cellphone manufacturer since 2016, but uses the Android operating system instead of the Blackberry operating system. So far, there are three Blackberry phones that they released, all three carrying a physical keyboard.
Blackberry itself stopped producing its own cellphones in 2016, after its dominance in the smart phone market for 14 years was eroded by new players such as Apple and Samsung. Out of the smart phone business, Blackberry based in Canada then focused on developing software and cyber security.
For information, TLC is not the only electronics company that is licensed to create a Blackberry branded mobile phone. There are two other companies that can produce Blackberry phones, including BB Merah Putih in Indonesia and another in India, Optiemus Infracom.
BB Merah Putih had launched two mobile phones in Indonesia in 2017, namely Aurora and KeyOne. Unfortunately, the sales of the two handsets did not match expectations. No wonder both of them are no longer produced.
The same thing happened to companies in India, which released Blackberry phones Evolve and Evolve X.