Google is expected to launch its own self-branded smartphone before the year is out, according to Ashok Kumar, Northeast Securities analyst

It will follow up with a series of phones running its Android operating system, as well as launching a branded netbook running its new Chrome operating system early next year, the analyst told me.

Mr Kumar said he had spoken to Google’s original device manufacturer (ODM) partners in Asia, who would supply the phones.

“Google’s secret sauce is its software stack, that’s where it excels, it can outsource manufacturing, it has been using Motorola as a guinea pig,” he said.

In a report, Mr Kumar said the new Google smartphone would use the 2.0 version of the Android operating system, “the same iteration of Android as the Motorola Droid. The hardware, featuring Qualcomm baseband, is expected to be competitive with Motorola’s offering.”

The Motorola Droid is being launched on Verizon’s network in November, with the carrier launching an advertising campaign at the weekend that pitched it as being in direct competition with the iPhone.

Mr Kumar’s report suggests the Google phone will feature the most powerful processor for Android - Qualcomm’s 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, and he says the same chipset will appear in the netbook.

His report suggested Google would sell the phone at retailers, rather than through carriers, although  he told me it made sense for Google to work with a carrier in distributing the phone, rather than selling it itself without a subsidy.

A Google smartphone, while long rumoured, would be surprising at this stage, with a number of new Android phones already expected by the end of the year in the US from Motorola, Samsung and HTC.

The Android platform appears to be taking off without the need for Google to drive the market with its own handset.

“Android adoption is literally about to explode. You have all the necessary conditions. You have the vendors, you have the distribution, and so forth,” Eric Schmidt, Google chief executive, told analysts on its earnings conference call last week.

“Android, as you know, has come a long way in a year, from one device with one carrier in one country and now 12 devices in 26 countries with 32 carriers with much more coming.”

Mr Kumar said in the interview the new Google phone would be “the first of many from Google, I think it can put out a differentiated product, this is a marathon not a sprint”.

Tags: android, apple, google, iphone, qualcomm, snapdragon

October 20, 2009 6:03pm in Hardware, Internet, Mobile, Software | Comment