Alcatel is a brand of mobile handsets owned by Finnish telecommunications company Nokia and used under license by Chinese electronics company TCL Technology. The brand originates with former French conglomerate Alcatel, which began building mobile phones from at least 1991. At the time known as Alcatel One Touch, the brand was licensed in 2005 to TCL, who have ever since held sole rights from Alcatel's successors, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia, having produced various handsets as well as other handheld devices mostly in the budget sector.
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Brand and company history
Alcatel/CGE introduced its first cellular phone in the 1980s under France's analog network. As of 1996, Alcatel sold approximately one million mobile phone handsets. Handsets were manufactured in France at factories in Illkirch and Laval. In the year 1998, Alcatel became the 5th largest global mobile phone maker with a share of 4.3%, shipping between 7 and 8 million handsets. In 1999 it sold 11.5 million for a 4.1% share and even managed to be the third largest supplier in Europe.
In the second quarter of 2000 Alcatel shipped 5.47 million phones (5.6% share), roughly the same as Panasonic, Siemens and Samsung, and all collectively behind the big three (Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson). However, Alcatel's handset sales then shrunk. In the year 2003, Alcatel sold just 7.6 million phones, only a marginal number out of the 520 million in total global sales.
After experiencing falling sales in the market and large losses in its parent company, Alcatel Mobile Phones was established on 24 April 2004 as a joint venture between Alcatel (45%) and TCL Corporation (55%) of China where both would jointly develop mobile phones. However, when unable to profitise off it, Alcatel decided to dissolve the joint venture in 2005 and exited the business entirely to focus on its core network business. TCL acquired Alcatel's 45 percent share, and TCL & Alcatel Mobile Phones became a wholly owned subsidiary group of TCL. The brand name continued to be licensed to TCL by Alcatel and its successor Alcatel-Lucent.
In 2010, Alcatel One Touch became the corporate brand. It became an official sponsor of Tour de France 2011. In February 2016 after the Alcatel One Touch brand came under Nokia ownership (after buying out Alcatel-Lucent), it was changed back to simply Alcatel and a new logo was introduced.
Company structure
TCL Mobile Limited (former name: T&A Mobile Phones Limited) is a member of TCL Communication listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE: 2618) which was established in August 2004 by TCL Communication and Alcatel. TCL Mobile Limited manages three business units: Alcatel, TCL Mobile Phones and Brand Design Lab. TCL Communication was also the developer of BlackBerry devices from 2016 to 2020 when its contract with BlackBerry expired.
Product history
Alcatel made its first digital GSM phone, 9109 HA, in 1991. It was the first GSM handset marketed in France. In 1996 the Alcatel HC800 launched. It was succeeded by Alcatel HC1000 which added data and fax transmission capability.
Alcatel introduced its One Touch range of GSM mobile phones at CeBIT 1997. The first products of the One Touch (OT) range included the One Touch Easy, a consumer handset sold in various colours and notable for using AAA standard alkaline batteries. It was released in June 1997, marketed in some European territories, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. Alcatel reported two million sales by September 1997. The second of the three products was the business-oriented Alcatel One Touch Pro, released in March 1997 and succeeding Alcatel HC1000. Lastly, a concept Alcatel One Touch COM was developed in collaboration with Sharp Corporation (who sold the very similar Sharp MC-G1) and was described as the first pocket sized smartphone combining a GSM phone, personal organiser and Internet and email terminal. It had a monochrome touchscreen display operated using a stylus. It was released in 1998.
In 1998 several new models were introduced in the Alcatel One Touch range. The One Touch Pocket was a professional phone with large display and software modem. At the lower end, One Touch Club is similar to the Easy but with a sliding keypad mechanism, while the Max was a model derived from the Easy. Alcatel One Touch View combined the sliding mechanism of the club with the more advanced features offered by the Pocket. Variants of some of these with the 'db' suffix were also released noting that these were dual band (the originals only make use of GSM 900 band).
The next generation of Alcatel One Touch phones came in 2000 with a significant redesign including a joystick controller and less colour pop. OT 300 was the cheaper handset for affordability, while OT 500 was the mid-ranger with more style and the OT 700, which was also Alcatel's first with a flip down keypad, was the executive one. In 2001 new updates were released, OT 311 and OT 511, followed by OT 312 and OT 512 in 2002. In March 2002, a new top model was introduced, the Alcatel OT 715.
The first Alcatel phone with a colour display was released in 2002, the OT 535. It was also the basis for a higher end model, OT 735, which included a built-in camera.
Awards
In 2012, Alcatel won an International Forum Design iF design award for its One Touch 818 and the Onetouch 355 Play models.