With the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona coming up next month, new developments around the Android open-source mobile platform are beginning to build expectations.
On Monday, Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile announced that it will soon begin selling its G1 Android phone in several European countries. The phone has been available for the last few months only in the United States and Great Britain. The first countries on the list are the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany and Poland.
$1.33 in Germany
The initial response to the G1 has been very strong, with hundreds of thousands sold in the U.S. by the end of 2008. T-Mobile Chief Executive Hamid Akhavan has described the phone as the most successful ever sold in this country. According to news reports, the G1 will be offered for the subsidized price of $1.33 (EU1.03) in Germany, along with a two-year contract. In the U.S., it sells for $179 with a two-year contract.
Except for an Android phone released by a small manufacturer for the Australian market, the G1 has been the only Android device on the market. But that will soon change. Samsung, which had announced that it would bring out an Android phone, is now saying the device will come out by the second quarter of this year.
Avi Greengart, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, said the list of companies intending to release Android phones is more efficiently described by citing those who won’t have Androids — Apple, Nokia and Research in Motion. “It seems that it’s everybody but these three,” he said.
He added that “all the biggest licensees are hedging their bets” by releasing Android products. Greengart pointed out that Microsoft and Symbian are two of the biggest potential losers if Android becomes a major platform. Given that there were no major Android announcements at the…