Huawei Technologies, best known as a telecommunications equipment maker, plans to unveil its latest smartphone running on Google’s Android operating system next week as the Chinese vendor looks to beef up its portfolio of high-end phones.
The global market for smartphones—those with enough power for tasks like downloading video and sending e-mail–has grown sharply this year thanks to the popularity of Apple’s latest iPhone and new devices from competitors such as Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Nokia. Market tracker iSuppli forecasts that smartphone shipments will rise 35.5% this year to 246.9 million units.
The news from Huawei, which has a record of beating Western rivals’ prices for communications equipment, raises the question of whether its Android handsets will compete on price in a largely high-end smartphone market. Glory Cheung, a spokeswoman for Huawei, said prices for innovative smartphones must be lowered for mobile broadband services to reach more users, and that Huawei’s new phone will be “highly competitive price-wise.”
But Huawei didn’t say how much it will sell the new phone for or where it will be offered. Huawei currently has nine Android smartphones available in China, South Africa and other countries in Europe and the Asia-Pacific, Cheung said.
One of those phones, the Pulse, from network operator T-Mobile, launched in the U.K. last year. T-Mobile’s website calls it the first Android phone available on a pay-as-you-go price plan.
Huawei will announce details on its new Android phone on Thursday. The device was jointly planned and developed with Google and will come with Android 2.2, a new version of the operating system, Cheung said. Cheung didn’t say which operators Huawei’s new phone will be available through.
It will be a selling point for the new phone that it is among the first handsets to come with the new version of Android, said Daryl Chiam, a senior analyst at research firm Canalys.
But it will still face tough competition from other smartphones if it launches in North America or Western Europe. Huawei will have to work closely with mobile operators, which dominate those markets, on issues like customizing its handsets for its phones to succeed there, said Chiam.
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