Eaccess to enter smartphone market: Nikkei

CALIFORNIA, USA: Mobile communications service provider eAccess Ltd will start offering smartphones this summer by teaming up with China's Huawei Technologies Co , the Nikkei business daily said.

The two models to be sold through eAccess will be the first smartphones from Huawei to hit Japan, the paper reported. One of the models will run on the latest version of Google Inc's Android operating system, Nikkei said.

By focussing on its voice communications business, the company aims to grow subscribers to its mobile communications services 23 percent to 3.85 million in the current year through March 2012, the daily reported.

eAccess Chairman Sachio Semmoto is expected to hold a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday to announce the planned release of the two smartphone handsets, the paper said.

These new models will bring eAccess in line with the top three mobile phone carriers - NTT DoCoMo Inc , KDDI Corp and Softbank Corp - which already offer smartphones, Nikkei said.