LG plans to launch smartphone with Firefox

SEOUL-the South Korean LG Electronics, which always used the Android on their smartphones, plans to launch an appliance, in the middle of this year, without the Google operating system. The device will run with Firefox, from Mozilla.
The phones will be sold in Brazil, Colombia, Spain and Venezuela, according to a company spokesman. The idea is to expand the market for Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland and Serbia during the second half or in 2014.
"Launch a smartphone with Firefox means that tried to meet diverse needs of our consumers," said a spokesman. "But this does not indicate, in any way, that we are giving up of Android," he said.
It is not only the LG that adopts the system of Mozilla. ZTE, China, launched earlier this year's Open, which uses Firefox, and announced the arrival of this unit in Spain, Venezuela and Colombia in the middle of the year. Huawei Technologies, another Chinese, plans to sell a phone type in the second quarter, said a spokesman for the group.
Still unclear, however, if Firefox has the ability to steal Android market. The Strategy Analytics, industry research firm, estimates that only 1% of the global Smartphone shipments this year have devices with the operating system. One of the challenges of the platform would be "a still unproven application experience and services," he says.
Google's system is the world market leader. IDC estimates that 68.8% of the cell phones used Android last year. At the same time, iOS, Apple, 18.8% of consumers.
LG's goal for the year is quite ambitious. The South Korean plans to sell more than 40 million mobile devices in 2013, which would mean an annual growth of 50%. According to Gartner, 3.3% of consumers had a global smartphone LG last year.