The demand for BlackBerry KEYone is said to be "extremely high" as the device is now sold out online in the United States. Due to the high demand of the latest Android smartphone from Blackberry, TCL is reportedly having trouble to keep the device in stock.
Steve Cistulli, the President of TCL, said in his series of tweets that the launch of BlackBerry KEYone has been an extraordinary day in North America due to extremely high demand for the device. But, Cistulli admits that there are also a lot of customers now having trouble regarding the stocks of the device, though he added that they are now working with their retail partners to have more stocks.
According to GSM Arena, the BlackBerry KEYone is only available in selected Best Buy stores because the device is already sold out on the website of BlackBerry. The device is also sold out on Amazon for both GSM and CDMA versions and marked as Amazon USA's number 1 best seller.
During the Mobile World Congress 2017, the BlackBerry KEYone was unveiled. The smartphone arrives with a classic BB's QWERTY keyboard, 4.5-inch 1080p full HD display, Android 7.1 Nougat, proprietary security software of BlackBerry, and a price of $549.99 in the United States.
TCL, the current owner and manufacturer of BlackBerry, tries to produce commercially Android BlackBerry smartphones like the BlackBerry DTEK50 and DTEK 60 launched in 2016. Both devices ditched the classic QWERTY keyboard of BlackBerry to have an all-touchscreen design. Both also featured mid-range specs but only said to be the repurposed versions of Alcatel Idol 4S and Idol 4 of TCL. The phones reportedly never caught the attention of customers.
Apart from these, BlackBerry introduced the first smartphone in 2015 that operates on Google's Android OS, the BlackBerry PRIV. The phone has a 5.43-inch display with physical QWERTY keyboard. Though it had garnered the attention of customers, the device was also said to be criticized because of its expensive unlocked price of $700.
But now, the strategy of TCL seems to work as both DTEK and PRIV were redesigned to be the KEYone, and the company expects for more demands for the device from consumers.