Garmin Android Devices Coming Second-Half Of 2009

Garmin are planning to release at least one Android-based smartphone in the second half of 2009, that will follow the company's delayed nuvifone.  According to Tony An, Garmin's Asia Pacific marketing director, the nuvifone will hit the Taiwan market in Q2 2009, with self-developed Android devices coming later.

Details of the devices, which will use Google's open-source platform, are unknown, though according to reports the design and development will be completed in-house by Garmin themselves and only manufacture outsourced.  An revealed the company's Android intentions on the back of better-than-expected sales performance in North America this year, which has caused the company to estimate total yearly sales as 50-percent higher than those in 2007, at 18 million units.

Garmin was among the fourteen new sign-ups to the Open Handset Alliance earlier this month.  However it was unclear at the time whether the company would merely be coding new versions of its existing smartphone navigation software for handsets such as the T-Mobile G1, or – as has now been confirmed – using the OS for devices of its own.

[via GPS Tracklog]