BlackBerry’s latest smartphone, the KEYone, is no longer expected to arrive in April as previously announced.
Company CEO John Chen announced the delay during the company’s fiscal Q4 2017 earnings call, saying the phone will instead ship sometime after May. He added that TCL, the Chinese firm that has partnered with BlackBerry to manufacture and market its phones in several markets across the globe, will start producing the device at the end of April.
“We just launched two phones, or we helped our partners launch two phones. One in Indonesia and that one is shipping already. The second one, that TCL announced at Mobile World Congress which is the physical keyboard on an Android, that one is not going to be slated to ship until probably the May timeframe. I think the first manufacturing production run is at the end of April. So the product looks pretty good, but the worldwide availability is going to be later than May,” said BlackBerry CEO John Chen.
Chen did not go on to provide additional information on Canadian pricing and availability. We’ve reached out to BlackBerry to find out more information. Stay tuned.
Initially announced at CES 2017 and then fully detailed by both BlackBerry and TCL at their Mobile World Congress keynote this past February, the KeyONE includes a 4.5-inch 1620 x 1080 display, Snapdragon 625 processor, 3,505 mAh battery and QWERTY keyboard.
Update: Steve Cistulli, the president and general manager of TCL Communication’s North American division, took to Twitter to share additional details about the delay. Over the course of several tweets, Cistulli said, contrary to John Chen’s statements, that KeyONE production is already underway. He also confirmed the smartphone will launch in the U.S. and Canada in May.
https://twitter.com/SteveCistulli/status/847912572812640256
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