T-Mobile to Offer Its G1 Phone in More European Countries

The T-Mobile G1 phone will start selling in several European countries in the following weeks, after already being available in Britain and the United States since October, announced German Deutsche Telekom's wireless unit T-Mobile.

The G1 is manufactured by Taiwan's HTC Corp and comes with a touch-sensitive screen, QWERTY keyboard, WiFi capabilities and popular Google applications including search, maps and mail. “We will introduce the G1 by January 30 in the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Austria,” said T-Mobile Chief Executive Hamid Akhavan on Monday.

According to Akhavan, the handset should become available in Germany on February 2 and is expected to get to the Polish market later that month. The G1 is currently selling in the United States for $179 with a two-year contract. According to a T-Mobile USA executive, the company managed to sell around 400,000 units by the end of 2008.

Akhavan also stated that the device was the most successful phone sold in the U.S., but did not give any precise number. “We have sold several hundred thousand phones. Sales have clearly exceeded our expectations,” he stated. The handset will come to Germany at the price of 1 Euro ($1.33) with a two-year contract with T-Mobile.

Mobile carriers hope that smartphones will help them leverage revenue streams from data traffic, at times when prices for mobile voice calls start to drop. The T-Mobile G1 phone is expected to come to the European markets in all of its color variants, including bronze, black and white.

Google's Android software system has been introduced in November 2007, and its launch was expected to provide a means of helping mobile phone industry make Internet on handsets work the same way it does on computers. Google's Android platform allows outside developers to make changes in it, which proves a plus in its competition against Apple's iPhone operating software.