TCL Mobile is facing a tough gig in Australia this year, with new management taking over following the exit of former Managing Director Sam Skontos and several other executives, who have set up their own distribution Company.
But the big question is Why no foldable, after the Company has been spruiking one for two years?
In Australia the business is punting on Harvey Norman to deliver for them after weak sales at JB Hi-Fi. They’ve now used CES 2022 to reveal new smartphones, though despite several prototype showings the Company has still not launched a foldable device to take on Samsung.
TCL’s success in Australia came with the Alcatel brand that got to #3 in the market.
Now TCL wants consumers to buy smartphones with their own branding as opposed to a licenced brand.
Yesterday Blackberry announced the end of the Blackberry smartphone, which was another TCL product that got warehoused because of poor sales.
TCL foldable prototypes shown to ChannelNews by TCL two years ago.
The Chinese Company finally pulled the plug on their Blackberry offering due to poor sales along with the Palm smartphone. 
After the TCL Plex came a range of 4G and 5G with the Company now making a strong push into 5G, a move that will see them go head-to-head with Motorola, the Lenovo-owned Company.
Stefan Streit, the chief marketing officer for TCL, is desperate to deliver premium performance at an affordable price, which is why we have not seen foldable devices from TCL, despite ChannelNews being shown prototypes two years ago in the Company’s Shenzhen boardroom.
Last year TCL delivered several new smartphones, including budget 5G devices. Now, according to Speit, they plan to launch eight smartphones in 2022.
“Once we get going in a category, we are going to go very fast.” he claims.
The problem for the Chinese brand is that TCL don’t have the budgets or the distribution of a Samsung or Apple and their “Chicago” foldable, which should have been in the market by now, is going to have to compete with a new reengineered Motorola Razr.
Their version of a flip phone was meant to come out in 2021. In fact, around this time last year, TCL promised to deliver a foldable in 2021.
That clearly didn’t happen.
Samsung Flip the market leader in foldable snartphones.
TCL was hoping to come into the market with a foldable smartphone for around $999. Speit is now claiming their Chicago prototype was a learning tool, and TCL intends to build on that tool.
According to TCL’s global marketing boss for Mobile Stephan Streit, TCL is waiting for a combination of factors to come together to ultimately release its first foldables. “The market needs to evolve, and the carriers need to embrace this next evolution of smartphones” he said, which in Australia is a problem for TCL as they have not been able to deliver traction with carriers with TCL-branded devices.
ChannelNews understands that Motorola has made traction with carriers who in 2022 will carry Motorola branded devices and a new Razr flip phone.
At CES, TCL announced a trio of new smartphones which we have covered in a separate story.
They include the TCL 30 XE 5G, and a new mmWave 5G TCL 30 V device.
