Wednesday, April 03, 2013

One with two? A flagship dual-SIM? Might HTC put two SIM slots into a Chinese version of the One?

ANDROID BEAT STORY >>

KEY MOBILE TREND: dual-SIM smartphones

More than 50 countries have mobile penetration rates greater than 100%. Yes,there are many tariff arbitragers in markets across the globe.

Dual-SIM feature phones are old hat, agreed. And dual-SIM Android smartphones have been around for a few years, but mostly at the low end. But if this HTC leak is legit and not counterfeit, might we see more dual-SIM smartphones at the high-end?

Here's something that might be a dual-SIM HTC One for the Chinese market supporting WCDMA and GSM, but no 4G of any type. There do appear to be two micro-SIM slots. Given the fact that the features are so different from HTC's One as it was recently introduced, this may be something quite different.

Most major and many minor Android vendors have introduced dual-SIM smartphones at this point. I lack the stats to report how well any of those are selling, but I do remember that some Samsung "duos" feature phone models did sell very well in some Eastern European countries a number of years back. All vendors should monitor the potential.

(Nokia does have dual-SIM Series 40 phones, which is considered nearly a smartphone platform. Will we see a Windows Phone dual-SIM device soon or a BlackBerry dual SIMer? Apple seems very unlikely.)

HTC One with two?

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