The BlackBerry KEYone was officially announced at MWC 2017 and it represented a mid-range handset that came with a physical QWERTY keyboard, something that many BlackBerry fans can appreciate. It was also originally pegged for a release in April and recent FCC approval suggested that things were on track.However it turns out that the handset has since been delayed. During the company’s recent fiscal earnings call, BlackBerry’s CEO John Chen revealed that the handset will be skipping its April launch and will be released in May instead. Chen also suggested that production of the handset would only begin at the end of April.
His comments read, “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.”
However in a tweet by Steve Cistulli, the president and general manager of TCL Communication’s North American division, he revealed that production of the handset is already underway, although he did confirm that the handset has indeed been delayed and will see May release in the US and Canada.
.@BBMobile Therefore the U.S. and Canadian KEYone launches will be in May 5/
— Steve Cistulli (@SteveCistulli) March 31, 2017
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