HP's WebOS Powered Smartphones Coming Early Next Year

After months of speculations, Hewlett-Packard executive has finally confirmed that the company will introduce smartphones using the webOS mobile operating system it acquired from Palm early this year due to a $1.2 billion acquisition deal.

On Wednesday, UK based news service Reuters (News - Alert) quoted senior vice president Eric Cador saying, "You will see us coming early next year with new phones." Speaking to attendees at an industry conference in Barcelona, Cador said that the new phones will run Palm’s webOS.

While no further details were provided at the conference, speculations during acquisition indicated that HP was interested in extending webOS capabilities across a wide range of mobile devices such as tablets, netbooks and smartphones.

Meanwhile, HP has readied the next generation webOS 2.0, which is expected to be available by the year-end. And webOS powered tablets are also in the works for release sometimes early next year.

HP is eyeing a market that is growing rapidly and is dominated by OS from players like Apple, Google (News - Alert), and Research in Motion (RIM). Microsoft is another major entrant into this market. But, latest research data shows that smartphones using Google’s Android OS are gaining market share. Three major smartphone makers supporting Android include Samsung, LG and Motorola (News - Alert).

Although, RIM’s Blackberry lost some market share lately, it is still the dominant phone in the market, followed by Apple’s iPhone.

HP’s PC rivals like Dell, Lenovo and Acer (News - Alert) have all been eyeing the mobile devices market with the recent introductions of smartphones and tablets.

According to market research firm IDC, the worldwide smartphone market for converged mobile devices is expected to grow 55.4 percent this year. A total of 119.4 million smartphones were shipped in the first half of 2010.