Airtel offers touchscreen phone 'HTC Touch' at Rs 19,900

New Delhi, June 15 (UNI) Leading mobile service provider Bharti Airtel today launched 'HTC Touch', a Microsoft Windows-based smartphone at Rs 19,900 in an exclusive tie-up with Taiwan-based mobile company High Tech Corporation (HTC).

HTC Touch will initially be available in 10 cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Pune, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Jaipur, to go up to 25 towns by September this year.

''Our partnership with HTC to introduce India's first TouchFLO technology featured handset underlines our commitment to innovation,'' Bharti Airtel Chief Marketing Officer (Mobile Services) Sanjay Gupta told reporters here.

Mr Gupta said this smartphone is exclusively for Airtel customers.

''Our new offering is the first device to feature TouchFLO, the new underlying touch screen technology that will definitely help the whole telecom industry move forward,'' HTC Chief Executive Officer Peter Chou said.

Leveraging the broad functionality of Windows Mobile 6 Professional, the HTC Touch includes Outlook Mobile, Office Mobile, Windows Live and the capabilities to run thousands of third-party applications, Mr Chou said.

The new homescreen provides one-touch access to emails, text messages, calender appointments, contacts and current weather conditions and forecasts for many cities around the world.

HTC, world's leading provider of Microsoft Windows-based phones, has its global operations in China, Japan, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

UNI