Blackberry signed a hardware licensing agreement with India’s Optiemus Infracom Ltd. The deal (financial terms unknown) will see the Delhi-based company handle BlackBerry-branded devices in India, one of BlackBerry’s biggest handset markets and neighbouring ones including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal.
Following the same path as PT BB Merah Putih in Indonesia and TCL; Optiemus will design, manufacture, sell, promote, and support BlackBerry-branded devices running Android OS. TCL-made Blackberry DTEK60 and DTEK50, were both distributed in Indian market by Optiemus.
BlackBerry will handle the software aspect by providing regular updates to maintain security on these devices. With over 1.3 billion people, India is on track to surpass the Unites States (USA) this year – 2017, as the world’s second largest smartphone market behind China, in terms of the units shipped.
With the ambition of reaching every corner of the Globe, Blackberry now has three hardware licensing partners – TCL will handle a vast majority of global market while PT BB Merah Putih will handle the ‘BB loyal’ Indonesia market and Optiemus the Indian market and neighbouring countries.
TCL has confirmed ‘Mercury’ – the first Android Blackberry smartphone with physical QWERTY keyboard will go official at the Mobile World Congress (MWC 2017) in Barcelona later this month.
Source: BlackBerry Blogs
