Google and Vodafone have teamed up to take on Apple’s iPhone, yesterday unveiling the internet search engine group’s second attempt to make a splash in the European mobile phone market.
The stakes are high, according to Mike Grant, a partner in the research group Analysys Mason. He said: “Google needs a big win in mobiles and Vodafone needs to crack the iPhone’s dominance of smartphones in the main European markets.”
The companies, along with the Taiwanese handset developer HTC Corporation, unveiled the successor to Google’s G1 phone at Mobile World Congress, the industry’s annual trade show, in Barcelona yesterday. It is set to hit UK shops in the next few months, exclusive to Vodafone, and will be free to customers on a £35-a month tariff. It will then do battle with the iPhone, which is currently exclusive to O2 in the UK.
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