Huawei to launch Android phone at Mobile World Congress

Huawei plans to launch its first handset based on Google's Android software at Mobile World Congress next month in Barcelona, according to the company's official site.

In the preview page for Huawei's Barcelona exhibit, the company said one of the "Innovative Mobile Terminals" it plans on displaying is a "smart mobile phone based on the 'Android' platform and first mobile phone based on 'one' single UMTS chipset." The Chinese equipment vendor did not provide any other details. 

Huawei said in November that it planned on entering the smartphone market by producing handsets based on the Symbian OS as well as on Android. It is uncertain what type of customer the company is targeting with the launch of an Android phone, but earlier this month a leaked internal Huawei memo predicted 29 percent sales growth in 2009.

The prediction may be based on the fact that China recently decided to award 3G CDMA technology licenses to the country's largest mobile operators, among other factors. Huawei may be hoping to tap into the 3G market in China or sell the phone to its global vendor clients.  

For more:
- see this Huawei page [1]
- see this post [2]

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Huawei [4] predicts 29% growth in 2009