BlackBerry has announced it’s planning an Australian release new Classic Q20 smartphone over the coming months, but at this stage local users will miss out on an official release of Mozilla’s $25 smartphone.
The three handsets gained significant attention at the 2014 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which is considered to be one of the most important trade shows in the telecommunications industry.
One of the handsets to garner significant attention at the show was the Nokia X, a Nokia smartphone that uses the Android operating system.
A Nokia spokesperson told SmartCompany the company will evaluate whether the highly-anticipated device will see an Australian release.
“With regards to local availability, Australia is part of our future plans for Nokia X and we will be evaluating its suitability for the Australian market with our channel partners.”
Meanwhile, a BlackBerry spokesperson told SmartCompany it intends to release the BlackBerry Classic Q20 before the end of 2014.
“We announced our intention to bring to market by the end of 2014 a keyboard device, which [BlackBerry chief executive] John Chen referred to as the ‘BlackBerry Classic‘.
“It combines the hardware features BlackBerry OS users were familiar with, and the updated BlackBerry 10 experience. More detail on expected timings, as well as images, will be available at a later date.”
However, Mozilla spokesperson Justin O’Kelly told SmartCompany Australians are unlikely to see a local release of the $25 phone.
“There are no current plans to launch Firefox OS phones in Australia,” O’Kelly says.
While both Optus and Telstra have announced Australian releases for the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Sony Xperia Z2, there is no official word from the major carriers on an Australian release of the BlackBerry Classic Q20.
“We are always open to new devices being introduced to the market however we have no announcements about these devices at the present time,” a Telstra spokesperson told SmartCompany.
Likewise, Vodafone is remaining tight-lipped on whether it is currently working on an Australian release of the phones.
“At this point I can’t deny or confirm anything, but will come back to you as soon as possible,” a Vodafone spokesperson told SmartCompany.
COMMENTS
SmartCompany is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while it is being reviewed, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.