Countdown to Apple iPhone Launch - Day 15 - June 29 Launch

Germany's three leading mobile service providers will start selling the HTC Touch smart phone in late June -- earlier than the European debut of Apple's iPhone, which the HTC Touch hopes to rival.

Taiwan's High Tech Computer Corp., which makes the HTC Touch, said today that its touch-screen phone would retail for a recommended €450 ($599 U.S.) if sold without a contract.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) plans to start selling its much-hyped iPhone in the United States on June 29. The iPhone's price tag will be $500 or $600, depending on the amount of memory it contains.

It eventually plans to sell the iPhone in Europe and Japan but has not announced specific dates or prices. AT&T Inc. is the only cellular service provider with rights to sell the iPhone in the United States; the phone will also be available in Apple stores.

HTC said T-Mobile will sell a version of the HTC Touch -- which has an integrated media player and is based on Microsoft software -- under the brand MDA Touch.
Vodafone Group PLC will bring out a co-branded version designed jointly with HTC, while O2 Germany will sell another version branded Xda Nova.

The HTC Touch will come with 1GB of memory for storing video, music and photos -- enough for about 250 tunes -- compared with the iPhone's 4GB or 8GB.

HTC has begun selling the HTC Touch in Taiwan and Britain and will introduce it in the United States later this month.

It has sold a better-than-expected 60,000 of the phones so far this month and JPMorgan expects that it should be able to ship 2 million between July and December.

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Bottomline:

Apple iPhone is not even out yet, and it has already found solid competition in HTC's HTC Touch phone. Head to head, iPhone will have four to eight times more memory than the Touch, and include a complete Internet browser and fully functional iPod. HTC Touch will be a worthy competitor nevertheless since the wireless operators may lower its price point based on contracts, and the fact that it has already found a foothold in international markets - this means it has been tested and primed. Could HTC Touch become the dark horse that rivals iPhone? Or could it even create a larger market for touchscreen mobile cell phones?

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is one of the top 20 innovators of The Innovation Index, and is the number one innovator for 2007 according to BusinessWeek.

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