BlackBerry KEYone Delayed Due To ‘Tremendous’ Demand; New US Release Date Announced

When the BlackBerry KEYone was announced at the Mobile World Congress 2017 it turned heads due to its premium design that blends a large touchscreen display with BlackBerry’s iconic smartphone keyboard. The company seems to have not anticipated that the handset would receive such good feedback from consumers, so it has now decided to delay the phone’s release just to meet the huge demand for it

On Friday, the CEO of TCL, which now manufactures phones for BlackBerry, has revealed on social media that they are delaying the KEYone smartphone. “Response to our global unveiling of KEYone has been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re very humbled by this excitement,” Steve Cistulli wrote before confirming that the “tremendous” demand has exceeded their initial supply.

Cistulli assured consumers in another tweet that production is underway, but they are pushing back the launch of the device just to be sure that its supply could meet “customer demands and avoid disappointing stock-outs.”

The Android-running smartphone was previously expected to launch in April though the company did not indicate the specific date of the month. With the delay in place, the TCL-manufactured device is now releasing in the U.S. and Canadian markets on May 5.

Cistulli finally said that they will be releasing more details about the BlackBerry KEYone in May. He also assured fans that they “remain committed to delivering a fantastic BlackBerry mobile experience.”
BlackBerry CEO John Chen echoed the same message about the KEYone During BlackBerry’s fiscal Q4 2017 earnings call.

“We just launched two phones, or we helped our partners launch two phones. One in Indonesia and that one is shipping already,” Chen said referring to the Indonesia-bound BlackBerry Aurora. “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.”

Chen also revealed that consumers can expect the device’s worldwide release to happen later than May. “ 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,” Chen was quoted as saying by MobileSyrup.

The BlackBerry KEYone is a device that sports a 4.5-inch 1620 x 1080p display, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 625 processor, a 3505mAh battery and the Canadian company’s iconic QWERTY keyboard.