Smartphones, the hottest and highest-growth segment in consumer electronics, have become the latest playground in the patent arms race. While you’re at a store innocently trying to decide between a Samsung Galaxy S and an iPhone 4, there’s a war taking place among the makers of those fantastic little computers that fit into the palm of your hand, one that could ultimately affect the choices available to you and the cost.

Smartphones, the hottest and highest-growth segment in consumer electronics, have become the latest playground in the patent arms race that accompanies every flourishing technology industry. The patent system is certainly complex—the Financial Times estimates that as many as 250,000 patents are at stake in a smartphone. Some patents are arguably ridiculous, too; for example, Apple has a patent for being able to call numbers cited in emails. All of the chaos and preceived absurdity of patent law is on display in the recent litgation over Google Android. And it’s just getting started.

In recent months, Apple’s lawyers have been aggressively suing Android manufacturers HTC and Samsung for various technologies, from the “look and feel” to how it connects to broadband networks. It’s clear that Apple has its patent strategy aimed squarely at the number one rival to its iOS mobile operating system, Android, which is now embedded in 40 percent of all U.S. smartphones compared to Apple’s 26.6 percent, according to June figures from comScore.

Veterans like Microsoft, Nokia, and Apple, each have tens of thousands of patents each, while Google’s portfolio is reportedly on the low end—”under 1,000.”

“Google’s always been late to the game with patents. I think it’s because there’s a tone at Google that software shouldn’t be patentable,” said a third-party developer who declined to be named. “Apple’s been the opposite—they’re relentless in protecting whatever intellectual property they generate.”

Publicly, Google seems to take an ambivalent view towards patents as being mutually exclusive with innovation. Just last month Google chairman Eric Schmidt, vowing to defend HTC, slammed those who bring up patent lawsuits: “We have seen an explosion of Android devices entering the market and, because of our successes, competitors are responding with lawsuits as they cannot respond through innovations,” he said. “I’m not too worried about this.”

But now that Apple is making life difficult for any popular Android manufacturer, there’s a rallying cry over the need for Google to step up and protect its manufacturers. In that same interview, when asked whether or not Google would provide financial support to HTC in case it loses, Schmidt simply said, “We will make sure they don’t lose, then.” Apple doesn’t always win. In June, it lost an epic two-year case against Nokia, and now has to pay billions of dollars for past and ongoing licensing fees to the Finnish manufacturer.

The patent war has polarized those in the tech world, with some admiring Apple’s aggressive patent-building strategy, and others defending Google’s relative indifference engaging in the controversial patent system. But beyond that, what will happen to Android if its manufacturers lose their patent lawsuits?

If Apple wins both HTC and Samsung battles, one of three things could happen:

1. HTC and Samsung would be ordered to pay ongoing royalties to Apple for every smartphone it makes.

2. The courts could issue an injunction banning infringing Samsung and HTC devices.

3. Apple could choose not to license its intellectual property to Android manufacturers.

Qualcomm’s Android-ready hardware and patents may be the solution to the hit-or-miss quality of Android phones and Google’s ongoing intellectual property fiasco.
Google Android has been incredibly successful, but it has also been wrapped in a series of problems. A good deal of the problems come from Google’s attempt to tear down the software licensing model Microsoft had been using for years. Much like if you try to put a round peg in a square hole, this kind of thing results in problems.

Interestingly enough, Qualcomm has come up with what may be the best, though least well-known, way to make a better Android phone. I was on-site at Qualcomm this week, and I think I can explain why some of the most successful Android phones run Qualcomm technology.

The Microsoft World
In a Microsoft world, Microsoft makes the platform, tends to get most of the profit, and pays for most of the marketing. The way this typically works, Microsoft delivers a very complete and locked-down software product to the OEMs, whether they build PCs or phones. These OEMs pay Microsoft, and Microsoft kicks back a percentage, which goes directly to that OEM’s marketing department to sell the device. In many cases, virtually the entire marketing budget for a new PC or Microsoft phone is sourced from this process.

The OEMs complained up a blue streak that this model didn’t allowed them to differentiate. Basically, rather than Microsoft providing outsourced software for them (effectively serving as their underlings) they had all become outsourced hardware for Microsoft (they were Microsoft’s underlings). In short they really didn’t like working for Microsoft.

The Android Problem
Google parachuted into this world with Android. The company gave it away for free, didn’t lock it down, and left it unfinished in order to address this huge concern about differentiation. However this became, particularly for tablets, the round peg in a square hole. The OEMs didn’t have the skill set to finish the product, because in a Microsoft world, they didn’t need it. Smartphones and tablets were more like PCs then they were like regular phones. Google didn’t kick back marketing money because it wasn’t being paid. The savings should have allowed the OEMs to fund marketing themselves, but instead they went for more aggressive pricing, leaving nothing for marketing.

So instead of getting better differentiated products, we generally ended up with very similar, less reliable, under-marketed products. There were exceptions. Motorola’s Xoom tablet got a lot of marketing, but was both unfinished and overpriced — to pay for that marketing. Verizon stepped and did the marketing for Motorola and HTC on the Droid phones, but created a new problem for the OEMs because the Droid branding belonged to Verizon – the OEMs were back to being “outsourced hardware” again.

Some of the Android phones are good, many aren’t, and no Android Tablet has even worried Apple yet. More troubling is that Android typically does better with carriers who don’t have the iPhone, suggesting it is just a placeholder until the iPhone gets to that carrier in the latest version.

Google had a good idea, the market just wasn’t ready for it, and Google didn’t know how to fix that problem. Oh, and there is the little problem of 37 ongoing lawsuits, most of which are against the OEMs because the intellectual property in Android isn’t properly protected. Or more accurately put, because folks like Steve Jobs think Google stole it.

In short, under Google, OEMs aren’t subservient to Microsoft anymore, but they are still screwed.

Qualcomm’s fix
Qualcomm is one of a handful of vendors that have a complete hardware package for Android — all of the components from processors, to graphics, to modems and radios. It is even developing screen technology that could be used to more positively differentiate some phones with better battery life and better outdoor view ability.

Qualcomm also has one of the largest patent portfolios in the business, and one of the largest software units. That may mean the company can indemnify more of the phone and better assure the quality of devices that use the full suite of Qualcomm’s offerings. The indemnification part is weak, largely because much of the exposure is sourced in Google and not in anything Qualcomm can do. But the ability to better assure the quality of the phone by helping to complete it is not.

What is interesting is that many of the folks who use Qualcomm’s hardware don’t use their software services, so you can’t just say that a Qualcomm-based phone will be better.

The irony appears to be that there is a problem, there appears to be most of a fix, but the industry doesn’t seem to understand either.

Android isn’t working
Selling lots of products that then get wrapped with litigation or don’t sell isn’t being successful. Google came up with an interesting new alternative to the Microsoft world, but didn’t fix the ecosystem to facilitate it. The result is either low quality or rich attorneys, and in some cases both. Qualcomm is taking the interesting path of trying to step in and assure the quality, and at least partially mitigate the litigation risk, but it is having mixed success. Ultimately, it may simply not be able to address the litigation risk effectively. Google’s response this week appears to be to whine about the unfairness of it all, which doesn’t seem to be working.

This leaves the ball in Google’s court. It needs to either embrace Microsoft’s model, or find a way to utilize companies like Qualcomm to modify the ecosystem so that its new model can work. It might also be wise if Google more seriously addressed its intellectual property problem as well.

Guest contributor Rob Enderle is the founder and principal analyst for the Enderle Group, and one of the most frequently quoted tech pundits in the world. Opinion pieces denote the opinions of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of Digital Trends.

The new version of the Android Market promised by Google earlier this month has begun rolling out to Android 2.2+ devices in the wild. The first sightings of the updated mobile application were spotted by members on the XDA-Developers forum, who have already extracted the mobile application and made it available to others who just can’t wait for the download.

In addition to a refreshed user interface, U.S. users will also be able to rent thousands of movies from their device and purchase e-books. These two moves in particular make Android a more competitive option to the Apple iPhone than it had been previously.

Google announced the forthcoming update to the Android Market in mid-July, noting that movie prices will begin at $1.99. However, unlike on Apple’s iTunes, there is no option to purchase movies, only rent them. Until now, movie rentals were available from the Web version of the Android Market, following Google’s announcement of the new streaming service at its I/O Conference in May.

Movies on Mobile!

The addition of mobile movie rentals is probably the most notable change for the Android Market, as Android-based devices have been fairly lacking in this department for many months. Third-party applications like mSpot helped to fill the void for some, but it was not until the launch of Hulu and Netflix on Android that users finally had access to vast media catalogs that their iPhone-toting counterparts had through both the iPhone versions of those apps, as well as iTunes.

But even at launch, the Netflix and Hulu catalogs weren’t available to all Android device owners. Netflix, for example, is struggling to deal with the large and varied install base of Android hardware, and is painstakingly certifying devices one-by-one to meet the demands of studios who require that copyright protection technology is implemented on all streams. Hulu is in the exact same boat.

For these reasons, it’s especially important that Google itself get involved in providing content options to a wider range of its Android users. Although the change won’t be available to those on older Android devices, Android 2.2 and up is supported. This addresses the majority of the current market, according to Google’s statistics. Only 21.1% of the Android install base is running Android 2.1 or lower.

It’s also worth noting the addition of the mobile e-book store is arriving in this update, too. As with movie rentals, all book purchases will be linked to a user’s Android account, and made available across all their devices, including phones, tablets and computers. And as with app purchases, all content downloads and video rentals can be added to a user’s account without them having to manually sync their device with a computer over a USB cable.

New User Interface Mimics Some iTunes Features

To highlight the new features, the mobile Market has an updated user interface, which showcases the books and movie categories directly from the homescreen. Elsewhere, sections like “Editor’s Choice” and “Staff Choices” go even further to mimic the iTunes experience of a curated collection of applications and recommendations. But there is not actually curation in terms of the apps accepted into the marketplace – all apps are immediately published upon developer submission.

The iTunes-like similarities don’t end there, however. Apps are now also easier to purchase – just one tap on the button displaying the app’s price and a second tap to confirm the purchase.

For those Android users out there who can’t stand the wait, and who know how to manage the installation of off-Market APK files, the Phandroid blog is hosting the link to the updated Market app. There are also instructions provided that will enable you to return to the old Market, if things go awry.

Nokia’s biggest profit margin killing headaches appear to be Android, China and Europe and the company doesn’t have any answers.

Speaking on a conference call, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said that the company was getting whacked in China due to “mismanagement” and high inventory levels. Simply put, Nokia can’t move phones in China. The story in Europe didn’t revolve around mismanagement as much as competition from Android. In either case, Nokia is taking some major body blows and can’t even provide an outlook for 2011.

Regarding China, Elop said:

As it relates to competitive challenges, it is the case that certain competitive forces, particularly Android, are really gaining momentum in certain regions. For example in China, there’s an indication of some very substantial movement in the growth of market share for Android, particularly in some technology areas where Nokia today with our current portfolio doesn’t compete.

A good example of this is the CDMA technology in China, where that technology has seen quite an increase in market share in China. And as you know, we don’t currently have CDMA products, but clearly, that’s something that we’d be considering in the future. So there’s some dynamics like that that we have to deal with.

And in Europe, Android was also routing Nokia. Elop noted:

In Europe, that’s not the case on the management perspective. It’s very much about competitive pressures. We’re seeing, for example, a large volume of Android devices really coming into the market. They’re largely undifferentiated from one another, which is putting pricing pressure thereupon, which in turn affects the overall ranging decisions of the operators; so there’s definitely pricing pressure going on.

Meanwhile, the problems in China revolve around smartphones primarily. However, Nokia is getting whacked on feature phones too. Elop said:

Overall, it is worth noting that the impact here is both smartphone and feature phone. So this is — even though a lot of the news has been about Symbian and so forth, we face very specific competitive pressures on the feature phone side as well, and face some of the same portfolio challenges here.

Now that being said, on the feature phone side we are just in the last couple of days beginning to ship in our dual-SIM products into emerging markets, which we have great hopes for. So there’s a lot of positive things happening there, but there’s definitely a situation here where it’s not only the Symbian range of devices but also feature phone devices that are under competitive pressure.

Given those problems, Nokia has a rough road ahead before it gets to Windows Phone 7 devices. The big question is where Nokia’s market share will sit once the Android onslaught subsides.

The mercurial U.S. smartphone market has a new favorite and it’s not the iPhone.

It’s Android, which is now the leading smartphone OS in the States in market share, according to a survey released this morning by Nielsen.

As of March 2011, 37 percent of smartphone users own an Android device, said Nielsen–significantly more than the 27 percent who own an iPhone and the 22 percent who own a BlackBerry.

That’s quite a shift from last October, when 27.9 percent owned an iPhone, 27.4 percent a BlackBerry and 22.7 percent an Android device. But evidently there’s a new trend in smartphone buying intent and it favors Android.

Nielsen’s latest figures show 31.1 percent of consumers planning to purchase a new smartphone leaning towards an Android device, up from 25.5 percent last fall. Meanwhile, 30 percent intend to buy an iPhone–down from 32.7 percent last fall–and 10.5 percent want a BlackBerry, down from 12.6 percent. As the research house notes, that shift in preference is already translating into sales. Half of those surveyed in March 2011 who purchased a smartphone in the previous six months said they bought an Android device.

BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) — The rise of the Android operating system seems to have gotten the attention of just about everyone, as Google Inc. is under attack by various patent holders looking to derail the software and the company. The beneficiaries are Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

The most recent court loss for Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) regarding Android just took place in Texas, where the company was fined $5 million for infringing on a patented algorithm within the Linux kernel. The implications of this are far-reaching, not only for Google and the Android phone makers, but apparently for Linux itself.

To me, it brings up the idiocy of software patents and threatens the future of innovation, but that rant is for another column. For now, this is all about attacking Android.

The exact details of this case have yet to be deconstructed by the media, but suffice it to say that if the verdict stands up, then all the handset makers using the Android OS will be subject to paying fees to produce their phones. That might be enough for these folks to look elsewhere for their OS, and this means Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) or maybe Nokia Corp.’s (NYSE:NOK) Symbian.

In the process, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) thrives. Android is the only phone OS that matches the iPhone for look and feel, as well as its healthy market for “apps.”

Exactly what will happen to the developing market for tablets remains to be seen, but it will probably be taken over altogether by the iPad. Even the Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE:BKS) Nook e-reader would be at risk, since it runs Android.

All this is up in the air until the fallout from the lawsuit gets analyzed. In the meantime, Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL) is attacking Google for some implementation of Java within Android that it says is some sort of licensing violation or infringement.

This appears to be an Apple initiative. It’s a well-known fact that Steve Jobs is good friends with Larry Ellison, and I do not see such relationships as benign. There is no doubt that Oracle is acting as a proxy for Apple and the iPhone.

Luckily, Google has the resources to fend off many attacks, but losing any court cases for any amount of money is a bad thing, and it puts the company’s road map in jeopardy.

Carriers in scrum over iPhoneWith iPhone market share up from grabs, Rex Crum expects executives at wireless companies AT&T and Verizon to get little sleep in the weeks and months ahead.
The good news is that the offending code within the Linux kernel can be rewritten, unless it is so tightly embedded that it would take years. I have no idea, but the way everyone is reacting to this verdict, that’s what it sounds like. Details of all this should shake out in the weeks ahead.

We’ll also know how this got triggered. Personally, I see elements of Microsoft strategy here, since it involves the future of Linux, and Microsoft hates Linux and realizes it is a bigger threat than anyone can know.

Combine this with the revelations that Google has been using Android to track people and report user movements, which could result in a congressional hearing. Now you have a moment of reflection regarding the Google persona as a company that supposedly does everything right and by the book.

Google’s new version of Android, Honeycomb, promises many new features, among them a holographic interface and 3D capabilities. However, those terms are sometimes thrown around rather loosely to mean many different things. What should users expect to see in the display when when they boot up a Honeycomb tablet for the first time?

Every time Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) mentions Android 3.0’s holographic interface and 3D capabilities, one perhaps imageines Princess Leia’s plea to Obi Wan Kenobi played back by R2D2 in “Star Wars.”

Android 3.0, aka “Honeycomb,” is claimed to have a redesigned holographic user interface and 3D.

But just what does Google mean by those terms? Will our mobile devices show holograms of two parties in a conversation? And will those holograms be in 3D?

Or, like Humpty Dumpty in “Alice in Wonderland,” who said words mean what he choose them to mean, is Google redefining the term “3D?”

Holographic Communication on Mobile Devices
It’s not going to be long before we’ll be able to interact with true 3D holograms of our friends in real time.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) predicts that we’ll be able to do so in the next five years because of improvements in 3D technology and holographic cameras and their miniaturization to fit into cell phones.

Scientists are working to turn video chat into holography chat, or 3D telepresence. The idea is to use light beams scattered from objects and reconstruct them into a picture of that object. This is similar to the way our eyes see things.

“A lot of this stuff already exists,” Will Stofega, a program director at IDC, told TechNewsWorld. “Qualcomm and some partners are involved in an augmented reality project with the ‘Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.’”

Stofega was referring to a joint Qualcomm-Mattel project to revive the game “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.” Here’s a YouTube video demonstrating augmented reality. It shows a “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em” video game popping up on a smartphone held by one of two men.

The technology to provide 3D communications on cellphones already exists, Stofega suggested.

However, true holographic communications won’t be available until several problems are solved.

“You need to work out how to draw very little power from your device, and you need to increase the amount of compute power in the device,” Stofega pointed out. “Then you need to get a really small pico projector and figure out how to contain it in a hand-held device that works.”

Some Available Technology
Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) has been “doing some really good work” on picro projectors, and Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) has been working on augmented reality and 3D in a small compute flow factor, Stofega said.

Qualcomm has teamed up with the Georgia Institute of Technology to establish the Qualcomm Augmented Reality Game Studio. This is an R&D center aimed at pioneering new concepts in mobile gaming and interactive media. It’s located at Georgia Tech’s Atlanta campus.

Further, Qualcomm has announced its latest Adreno graphics processing units. These are embedded in its Snapdragon chipsets, and are claimed to deliver console-quality 3D graphics in smartphones and tablets.

What’s Google Got?
So where does Google fit into this 3D, holographic spectrum?

Well, Honeycomb has a built-in graphics library that lets developers hardware-accelerate common 2D rendering operations in their apps easily. And it has a new 3D graphics engine called “Renderscript” that lets devs add rich 3D scenes.

Google showed off a newly designed Google Maps, Google Body 3D and some games with 3D scenes at a special event held Wednesday at the Googleplex to provide an in-depth look at Honeycomb.

Also, Honeycomb comes with a property-based animation framework that lets appdevs use new UI components, new themes, richer widgets and notifications and other features to create rich apps for devices with larger screens.

But do these features make for true 3D or true holography?

Google Maps 5 offers, at best, a quasi-3D rendition. It uses vectors instead of tiles as its predecessors did. “Where you may have had only top-down displays of roads and local features and landmarks, you can now see the elevations of buildings and wireframe drawings,” Jeff Orr, a principal analyst at ABI Research, told TechNewsWorld.

Let’s Wait for Tomorrow
At this point, it’s difficult to confidently state whether or not Honeycomb offers a true 3D display, or whether its “richer environment” is truly holographic until more people get a chance to examine the OS closely.

“Everyone’s still speculating about these capabilities of Android 3.0,” Phil Pickering, director of client engagement at Amadeus Consulting, told TechNewsWorld.

“We haven’t had a chance to review the SDK so we can’t pass along our judgment on the reality of the claims of Android 3.0’s holographic and 3D capabilities,” Pickering added. “When we get our hands on it, we’ll dig right in and begin testing.”

Google did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

The arrival of low-priced smartphones is an event many have been waiting on for some time. Sure there are often buy one, get one deals or one-day specials where you can find a smartphone for as little as a penny, but in most cases, such deals are tied to expensive plan commitments that last for two years. For a real paradigm shift, we’ll need to see unsubsidized handsets priced at or under $100 that can be used on a month-to-month basis. We’re inching closer to that shift.

Take the LG Optimus V, for example. Virgin Mobile just began selling this Android smartphone for $149. Since Virgin Mobile is a pre-paid operator, there’s no contract involved. That means the company is selling the handset at full-price; there’s no subsidy, no contract cancellation fee and no commitment. You pay $149 and the phone is yours. Monthly plans that include unlimited mobile broadband access with Virgin Mobile — which uses Sprint’s network — start at $25 with a limited amount of minutes.

Think about that for a second. With a $149 initial investment and then an ongoing cost of less than $1 per day, someone can have a basic, but useful, smartphone in the U.S., with the flexibility of upgrading to a better phone or different carrier at any point in time. Granted, the Optimus V doesn’t compare to the high-end specifications of the latest and greatest Androids, Apple’s iPhone, or other currently popular devices, but I’m not sure that matters.

I reviewed the LG Optimus T handset back in November, and it’s essentially the same phone as the Optimus V; LG is rebadging the basic design for different carriers. For a long-time mobile device user that values high performance, the Optimus may not be as fast or as feature-packed as what I’m used to. But that doesn’t mean it won’t provide value to those currently on feature phones or other low-end smartphones. In my review, I noted:

This handset does just about everything that my more expensive phone can do. You can install mobile apps from the Android Market (yay Angry Birds!), share pics on Facebook (taken with a decent, but not high-end camera), browse the web over 3G or Wi-Fi, manage email on the go, check-in on Foursquare, use Google’s Navigation and use Google Voice services. The phone uses the latest version of Android, which helps boost performance. Plus, the 1500 mAh battery paired with a slower processor makes for an all-day device.
All of the essential functions are there: 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a touchscreen display, GPS, a 3.2-megapixel camera and more. Plus, the handset can run a myriad of software found in the Android Market. Would I like to see the device have more guts than the 600 MHz processor provides? Sure I would, but each improved feature boosts the costs and puts the device out of reach for more consumers on a tight budget, and besides, I’m not in the target audience for this device.

The Optimus handset line, especially when paired with a low-cost pre-paid plan, represents the coming wave of cheaper smartphones: a slowly rising tide that will bring additional challenges to companies such as Nokia that sell more feature phones than any company in the world today. Indeed, outside the U.S., where Nokia is a popular brand, such cheap smartphones may even greater risk to Nokia. Why? Because here in the U.S. our handsets are generally tied or locked to a carrier and we have two different network technologies. But in Europe and elsewhere, it’s not uncommon to buy a phone, then purchase a SIM card from whichever carrier is currently offering the cheapest voice and data rates. A cheap, no-contract handset can run on any number of networks in that case, making the device an even more appealing alternative to a feature phone.

Adding additional pressure is the likelihood of these Android handsets getting cheaper in the future. Brian Modoff from Deutsche Bank Equity Research yesterday issued this note:

By 2013, we expect 1 GHz smartphones to be available for $100. The combination of a $0 license for Android and the steady march of Moore’s Law could translate into $100 smartphones by late 2012 or early 2013. At that point, we think even the average emerging markets’ consumer shift their purchase sharply away from feature phones to smartphones, posing a serious challenge to companies such as Nokia without a clear strategy for low-end operating systems.
I agree with Modoff in principle, but I suspect the timeline he presents for a $100 smartphone is too conservative. By the end of this year, I expect to see no-contract Android devices costing $99 or less, paired with reasonably priced pre-paid plans. There may be a question of exactly when that will happen, but there’s no question that it will happen. And when it does, it will open up the floodgates for upgrades to those on feature phones and kick smartphone adoption into an even higher gear.

Google’s Android platform is most often compared to Apple’s iPhone, because they’re the two most advanced smartphone platforms, belong to the two giants of Silicon Valley, and because they compete over consumer mindshare, developer mindshare, and bragging rights.

But if you look at the data, it’s not the iPhone that has necessarily suffered the most from Android’s rise. It’s RIM and the BlackBerry.

Earlier this week, we ran a chart showing comScore stats for U.S. Google Android subscribers by carrier, noting that Verizon was responsible for about half of Android’s subscribers in the U.S. (The context is the new Verizon iPhone, which kick-starts a new stage in Apple’s war with Google.)

At Asymco, Horace Dediu then added a few months’ worth of AT&T iPhone subscriber data to our chart, showing how much bigger the iPhone is than Android at AT&T.

Now we’ve added the full year’s worth of AT&T-iPhone data, and as you can see in the chart above, it’s still growing nicely, despite the rise of Android at every other carrier.

But what’s just as interesting is how much RIM and the BlackBerry have suffered at Verizon because of Android’s gains there. Verizon was once RIM’s most important carrier partner; now the BlackBerry is about to become Verizon’s third-favorite smartphone platform.

Over the last year or so, RIM — led by the crappy flagship BlackBerry Storm, remember that? — fell to 45% of Verizon’s smartphone subscriber base in November, 2010, per comScore. That’s down from 69% of Verizon’s smartphone subs in November, 2009.

Meanwhile, during that time, Android rose to 44% of Verizon’s smartphone subscriber base, up from 2% the year before. (For the record, these comScore stats represent 3-month averages ending in the months specified.)

Because of the growth of the smartphone market, RIM managed to keep its absolute number of Verizon subscribers flattish until it started dropping late in 2010. But compared to Android’s growth during that time, it’s very troubling.

The bigger question going forward is whether Android will keep growing at Verizon now that it’s going to start selling the iPhone. And, then, what the heck happens to RIM?

Huawei Technologies on Friday revealed details on its newest smartphone running on Google’s Android operating system, in the latest show of the company’s aim to boost its profile and its penetration of new markets with low-priced Android phones.

Huawei
Huawei’s touchscreen Ideos X5 The touchscreen Ideos X5, which runs on Android 2.2, will go on sale in Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand this month, Victor Xu, chief marketing officer for Huawei’s device division, said.

The phone will be priced at $250 to $300 and will also launch in other markets, including North America, he said in webcasted remarks, without giving a time frame for those markets.

That price range is more expensive than an earlier version of the Ideos phone, which Huawei launched in September and said would have a recommended retail price of between $100 and $200 for pay-as-you-go customers. But it’s still about half the price of certain Android phones popular in the U.S. Verizon Wireless, for instance, lists the full retail price of Motorola’s Droid X smartphone as $569.99, though it doesn’t actually sell the phone without a data package.

Huawei has launched about 10 Android smartphones and will launch 10 more smartphones in 2011, beginning with the Ideos X5, Xu said. Huawei has sold more than 1 million units of the earlier Ideos phone, driven by sales in the U.S. and Japan, he said.

The Chinese company shipped more than 3 million Android smartphones last year and over 120 million units of all handsets and other devices, Xu said. Huawei has an Android tablet device called the S7.

Despite these offerings, Huawei remains far from becoming a globally recognized handset maker. Huawei-branded phones accounted for 1.3% of the 348 million mobile phones shipped globally in the third quarter, ranking the company at eleventh place, according to market researcher IDC. Nokia phones ranked first with a 32% share, IDC said.

IDC’s figures, however, don’t include phones that are made by Huawei but branded with the name of a mobile operator, which is a common practice for the company especially in developed markets.

Separately on Friday, Huawei’s cross-town rival ZTE said it plans to launch a tablet called ZTE Light LTE this year, adding to a series of Android tablets from the company. It didn’t give any details. ZTE, which like Huawei is based in the Chinese city of Shenzhen and is mainly a maker of telecommunications equipment, has also been pushing to sell more of its Android devices in developed markets.