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Samsung's Android Phone Plans

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Despite a fanatical amount of interest from the tech media and early adopters, Samsung has mostly kept quiet about its plans to develop phones using Google's mobile platform, Android. But at the CTIA Wireless trade show, an executive shared with Forbes some details about the company's Android strategy.

Samsung plans to release several Android devices this year. Dr. Won-Pyo Hong, executive vice president of global product strategy in the company's mobile communication division, said Samsung's first Android phone is slated to launch in June outside the U.S.

U.S. consumers will have their pick of two other Android devices sometime in the second half of the year, Hong said. The two U.S. phones will go to two different carriers. The U.S. operators are likely to be Sprint ( S - news - people ) and T-Mobile, the only two U.S. carriers that have signed on to Google's ( GOOG - news - people ) Android working group, the Open Handset Alliance.

Due to operator preferences, the two U.S. Android phones will look "totally different," Hong said. In contrast, Samsung plans to deliver one Android phone, at least initially, to European consumers. "In Europe, you can launch one common device with several carriers," he noted.

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