It looks like BlackBerry’s Android experiment could be over
Several years ago, BlackBerry announced that they would no longer be making their own smartphones. Instead, they licensed out their brand and designs to TCL (similar to Nokia and HMD’s partnership) which resulted in several BlackBerry-branded Android smartphones.
But now it looks like it could be over, at least as far as TCL is concerned.
In a post on the BlackBerry Twitter page, TCL has announced that come August 31, 2020, their licensing agreement with BlackBerry will be coming to an end. What this means is that moving forwards, TCL will no longer be able to make BlackBerry-branded Android handsets.
It does not seem like TCL will be renewing their licensing agreement with BlackBerry, but thankfully the company does at the very least plan on supporting all existing devices up to August 31, 2022.
— BlackBerry Mobile (@BBMobile) February 3, 2020
Does this mean that BlackBerry will no longer be making new Android devices? While it seems unlikely the company will return to manufacturing their own phones, it is possible that another company could pick up where TCL left off. Nothing has been confirmed yet so for the time-being, it looks like we probably shouldn’t expect to see any new Android BlackBerry phones in the near future.