(CNNMoney) – Sorry, BlackBerry followers. Iconic smartphones with full keyboard could disappear … once again.
TCL Communication, the electronics company that has been manufacturing BlackBerry smartphones, said Monday that the partnership is over and will stop selling BlackBerry-branded mobile devices in August. TCL no longer has the rights to “design, manufacture or sell” any new Blackberry devices, the company said in a statement posted on Twitter. TCL will continue to support existing devices with customer service and warranty until 2022.
For BlackBerry fans, that could mean losing the opportunity to buy one of the devices that were once so popular that people nicknamed them “CrackBerries.” It is not clear whether BlackBerry will partner with another production company to continue selling the devices. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“For those of us at TCL Communication who had the blessing of working at BlackBerry Mobile, we want to thank all our partners, customers and the BlackBerry fan community for their support in recent years,” TCL Communication said in the statement.
TCL Communication worked with BlackBerry to produce KEY series smartphones, including BlackBerry KEYonne Motion, KEY2 and KEY2 LE. In addition to keyboards, BlackBerry devices have also been praised for the company’s well-regarded security features.
While it is potentially a loss for smartphone users who love the keyboard, BlackBerry is no longer dependent on mobile device sales for most of its business.
The company stopped manufacturing its own smartphones in 2016 and instead outsourced the production of the devices to manufacturing partners such as TCL Communication.
The decision came in the midst of the drop in phone sales: there were fewer new smartphone customers to attend as the market became more saturated. BlackBerry was also slow in the competition game with a touch screen, which caused it to lose against Apple’s iPhone, Samsung’s Galaxy and other Android devices.
Instead, BlackBerry turned its attention to the most lucrative software business, particularly for cybersecurity and devices connected to the “internet of things” such as cars. While the company is still struggling to make a profit in fiscal year 2020, the strategy has helped BlackBerry return from the brink of failure less than a decade ago, when investors were worried about the company’s survival.
BlackBerry shares rose about 1% after the announcement on Monday.
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