A Twitter phone will make its way to the market in time for the holidays, according to a Reuters report today. The phone is being manufactured by INQ Mobile, which was also responsible for the recent Facebook and Skype phones. The planned handset will let consumers use the micro-blogging service over their Internet connection and, according to JBB Research CEO Julien Blin, could also make social networking the next battleground for mobile subscribers.
Despite the fact that the Facebook and Skype phones have only been launched with one carrier, 3, Blin predicts the Twitter phone will be the perfect complement to the online version. The two-year old company, which lets users send 140-character SMS-like “Tweets,” has struggled to make money even as its seen use explode. The company has been announcing plans to eradicate this with business tools and advanced advertising models throughout the year. These include various revenue-generating add-on tools and services for business users outside of just banner ads, as well as paid pro-accounts. Twitter execs also told the New York Times they were looking at outside initiatives as they planned a premium service launch.
“The Twitter phone makes sense for Twitter because Twitter’s success is based on its simplicity and ease of use,” Blin wrote in a research note. “With a price point of less than $140, the Twitter phone is set to target the low-end market. Ultimately, this should help Twitter fuel the adoption of its popular micro-blogging service.”
A Twitter phone makes sense for more than just Twitter too, Blin said. It’d also be a smart move for other handset makers to incorporate, including Nokia as it concentrates on mobile apps and services. With its dominance of the low-end handset market, as well as an existing partnership with Skype, Nokia is well-positioned to integrate Twitter into its portfolio.
Considering that INQ has already sold 700,000 phones since it introduced the Skype phone in 2007 and reports three to four times higher Web traffic than other handsets, combining Twitter’s expanding presence with a popular handset might even give Google’s new Google Wave service a run for its money.
“Clearly, the competition between INQ and Nokia, and others (LG, Samsung), in this social-networking-centric handset market could be fierce in the coming years,” Blin said.
