Firefox OS phones arrive in Serbia, Hungary, Montenegro
Norwegian telco Telenor has launched its HTML5-based Firefox OS smartphones in Serbia, Hungary, and Montenegro.
Read this
Announcing the launch today, Telenor will make the the Alcatel One Touch Fire available to customers in Serbia, while launching "Firefox OS-based phones" in Hungary and Montenegro.
Though Telenor hasn't said which Firefox OS phones it's launching in Hungary and Montenegro, other rollouts have included LG's 4-inch Fireweb and ZTE's 3.5-inch Open.
Telenor announced plans to launch a Firefox OS to customers in Central and Eastern Europe in February. It joins fellow telcos Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom in rolling out Firefox OS devices this year, with the pair now offering Mozilla-powered handsets in some markets in Europe and Latin America.
Telenor notes that Asian markets will follow the current release. The operator has a few hundred thousand subscribers in each of Thailand (through its local brand dtac), Malaysia (DiGi), Bangladesh (Grameenphone) and Pakistan, where it uses the Telenor brand. Its Indian operation meanwhile has 26 million subscribers, according to its third quarter earnings report.
Telefonica launched its first Firefox OS devices in July and now offers the handsets in Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, and Mexico, as well as Spain, Colombia, and Venezuela. Deutsche Telekom has launched Firefox OS in Poland and Germany, while Greece and Hungary have also got Mozilla mobiles this year, through Cosmote and Telekom respectively.
Mozilla claims there are now "thousands" of Firefox OS apps available in its app store, although when asked by ZDNet for an actual figure, a Mozilla spokesperson declined to provide one.
As for device sales, it's similarly unclear how popular Firefox shaping up to be, although ZTE's Open quickly sold out when it was released on eBay earlier this year.