Verizon Wireless, the largest US mobile-phone carrier, may sell phones based on Google Inc’s Android operating system in time for the year-end holiday shopping season, a person familiar with the plan said.
The phones, one made by Motorola Inc and one by HTC Corp (宏達電), don’t have prices yet, the source said. The handsets will probably have touch screens and physical keyboards, said the source, who declined to be identified because the plans aren’t finalized.
Verizon joins Japan’s NTT DoCoMo Inc and Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile units in offering Android smart phones as operators look to the Internet-capable devices to boost revenue. Google is pitting its platform, first released on handsets in October, against Microsoft Corp’s Windows Mobile operating system, and Apple Inc’s iPhone and Research in Motion Ltd’s BlackBerry, which run on the makers’ proprietary software.
Brenda Raney, a Verizon spokeswoman, declined to comment. Carolyn Wu, Motorola’s director of communications for Asia, confirmed the company plans to ship Android-based phones this year, while declining to comment on whether it will supply Verizon. Taoyuan-based HTC declined to comment on the company’s relationship with operators.
HTC, maker of the first Android phone released through T-Mobile USA Inc, will offer MyTouch, its second Google model, through the same carrier next month and an Android handset in China this month. The company also plans to release three new Windows-based phones this quarter, it said April 30.
Google expects at least 18 Android phones to be introduced by the end of the year, the company said. Acer Inc (宏碁), Samsung Electronics Co and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) have also said they plan to offer Android handsets.
AT&T Inc, the exclusive carrier of Apple’s iPhone, attracted more than double the amount of smart-phone users than its nearest rival, accounting for 46.9 percent of all advanced, Internet-capable handsets at the end of March, researcher ComScore Inc said. Verizon was second during the period with a 20 percent share.
IPhone users spend about 60 percent more on subscriptions than other AT&T customers, the company has said. Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), Taiwan’s largest phone operator, said on April 29 its iPhone customers spend around 20 percent more per month than subscribers with different handsets.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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