Alcatel: A Successful Joint Venture

Alcatel is a French-Finnish-Chinese brand of mobile sets. Nokia is its owner. It is used under license by Chinese electronics company TCL Corporation. The Alcatel brand was given license in 2005. The license was provided by former French electronics and telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent to TCL for mobile phones and devices.

At the end of the year 2024, its current license will be expired. In the year 2016, Nokia successfully got the assets of Alcatel-Lucent. Hence, it also got the licensing agreements for the Alcatel brand. Under the Alcatel brand, TCL Communication Technology Holdings Limited (TCL Communication) designs and produces a wide range of mobile devices and they are sold in more than 160 countries.

Background

In April 2004, Alcatel Mobile Phones was established. It was a result of joint venture between Alcatel-Lucent (45%) and TCL Corporation (55 percent). Actually, Alcatel started making mobile sets in 1998. In 2005, the joint venture vanished and TCL got Alcatel-Lucent’s 45 percent share, and Alcatel Mobile Phones became a wholly owned subsidiary group of TCL. So, the brand name was licensed to TCL. In the year 2010, Alcatel One Touch became the corporate brand. In February 2016, its name was changed simply to Alcatel and a new logo of it was introduced.

Structure of the Company   

TCL Mobile Limited (former name: T&A Mobile Phones Limited) is a member of TCL Communication listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE: 2618). TCL Communication and Alcatel established it in August 2004. TCL Mobile Limited controls three business units that include Alcatel, TCL Mobile Phones, and Brand Design Lab. Since 2016, BlackBerry devices are also developed by TCL Communication.

Awards

In 2012, Alcatel won award for International Forum Design iF design. It got award because of One Touch 818 and the OneTouch 355 Play models.

Models

The first Alcatel phone was the OT Easy HF which was released in 1998. It had a battery standby life of up to 140 hours. In 2014, ‘Alcatel OneTouch Pop 7’ was released. In 2016, Alcatel Pop 4, Alcatel Pop 4+, Alcatel Pop 4s, and Alcatel Pop 7 LTE were unveiled. In 2015, they launched the ‘Alcatel OneTouch Pop Fit’. Its main feature was that it could be strapped to a wrist. In 2017, TCL launched the Alcatel A50 LED. It is the first Android smartphone with an “interactive LED-covered phone”.

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