HTC shipping CDMA-version Nexus One to Verizon, says paper
HTC (High Tech Computer) has started shipping CDMA-version of the Nexus One Google phones to Verizon Wireless, which will begin to market the smartphones this month or in April at the earliest, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report.
Context & Ripple Effects
The Nexus One began life as a deliberately un-carrier-like product: Engadget's December 2009 exclusive detailed full specs for a phone Google planned to sell itself through invite-only web sales starting January 5th. By late February the wall was cracking — Neowin reported a Verizon launch pegged to March 23, and the Telegraph had the device reaching Vodafone UK in April.
DigiTimes' pickup of the Chinese-language Economic Daily News now supplies the supply-chain leg of that shift: HTC has reportedly started shipping the CDMA build to Verizon Wireless, with marketing to begin this month or in April at the earliest. Both the shipping start and the timing are attributed to EDN and remain unconfirmed by the carriers themselves.
First-order effects
- If EDN's sourcing is right, Verizon gains a flagship Android handset to merchandise within weeks, giving it a Google-branded answer alongside its own Droid lineup.
- HTC moves from a single GSM configuration to running parallel CDMA production for the same device, deepening its position as Google's hardware manufacturer across both major US network standards.
Second-order effects
- Carrier distribution changes the buying math that defined the January launch: a subsidized, on-contract Nexus One through Verizon competes directly with Google's own unsubsidized web storefront, pressuring Google to reconcile two channels for one product.
- The international cadence already set by Vodafone's reported April rollout means HTC must sustain multi-region, multi-standard shipments simultaneously, making its supply execution a visible constraint on how fast the Nexus brand scales.
Third-order effects
- A wider installed base of Nexus-class smartphones serves Google's advertising engine, consistent with Google's own stated expectation that mobile ad rates will eventually surpass its PC-based rates as powerful smartphones proliferate.
- If porting a Google flagship to a second radio standard proves routine, the Nexus line becomes a repeatable multi-carrier template rather than a single web-sold experiment — a structural test of whether Google's direct-retail model survives alongside the operator channel.
The trend: Android's 2010 trajectory is turning Google's flagship phone from a single web-sold device into a multi-carrier platform, with operator subsidies and CDMA variants doing the scaling the direct store could not.