BlackBerry partners with Foxconn to produce affordable BlackBerry 10 devices

As sales plunge, BlackBerry has announced a new partnership with Foxconn to produce BlackBerry 10 devices. The five year partnership aims to launch the first device by March or April. The BlackBerry 10 based device will be introduced first in Indonesia. The company has also earmarked six or seven additional markets for the device.

The device will be 3G enabled and should make its way to India as well given that the subcontinent remains a fairly major market for BlackBerry products. Shifting to Foxconn will allow BlackBerry to cutdown investments while possibly producing better hardware. All intellectual property will be owned by BlackBerry. Foxconn’s responsibilities will be limited to manufacturing and working on the hardware of the devices. The cost of manufacturing will be paid to Foxconn directly by BlackBerry once production starts and costs are finalized. A clause is in place which says that Foxconn will take a portion of revenues once they exceed a certain amount.

The new phone is expected to be produced at Foxconn’s facilities in Mexico and Indonesia. Commenting on the deal, BlackBerry CEO John Chen had this to say, “For the foreseeable future, in North America, our designers will focus on enterprise handsets only…Most of all I’m going to depend on Foxconn for consumer devices.”