In a Thursday announcement, BlackBerry said that it has inked a long-term licensing deal with Chinese electronics firm TCL for the manufacturing of BlackBerry smartphones.

The announcement of Canada-based BlackBerry’s licensing deal with TCL implies that BlackBerry – once a big name in the smartphone market – is now closer to becoming a full-fledged security software and services company.

BlackBerry had already said in a September, after suffering a $372 million quarterly loss, that it would stop manufacturing and designing handsets, and would pass the responsibility of hardware-manufacturing to its partners.

As a result of its recently-announced long-term licensing deal with TCL, BlackBerry has become the first Canadian tech company to have signed such a deal after turning its focus to software.

According to the terms of BlackBerry’s licensing deal with TCL, the responsibility of the designing, manufacturing, and sales of BlackBerry handsets, as well as providing customer support for the devices, will be shouldered by TCL.

About the deal, TCL CEO Nicolas Zibell said that the partnership will facilitate the amalgamation of TCL’s hardware with BlackBerry's smartphone software and will strengthen TCL’s position in the worldwide mobile market.