Vodafone signs up as KIN launch partners
Vodafone is to expand its smartphone offering by being the launch partners for KIN, a new Windows Phone designed specifically for people who are actively navigating their social lives, to Europe in Autumn 2010.
Initial launch markets will be Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, with further markets to follow before the end of 2010.
According to Microsoft, KIN is designed to be the ultimate social experience that blends the phone, online services and a browser based experience for viewing photos, videos, contacts and feeds from any computer.
Features like the KIN Spot, Loop and Studio harness the power of social media to let people publish and share everything they love, with everyone they love.
Patrick Chomet, group director of terminals at Vodafone, says: “Vodafone is delighted to further its partnership with Microsoft, bringing our customers Microsoft’s latest innovation – KIN. Mobile social networking is increasingly having strong appeal for our customers. KIN has a unique and intuitive way of engaging with the user, enabling them easily to share experiences and stay in touch with their friends.
“Our aim is to provide our customers with the widest choice of attractive smartphones and the best-in-class experience of new services through Vodafone’s high-speed mobile broadband network. This announcement continues to deliver on our ambition to be the strongest provider of data-centric mobile experiences across platforms and operating systems.”
Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment and Devices division at Microsoft, adds: “The new KIN phone brings together everything important to socially-connected people in a way that is completely natural for them. KIN phones, together with Vodafone’s outstanding coverage, will provide people in Europe with a great social experience on a mobile device.”
Microsoft unveiled the smartphone yesterday (12 April) and aims to compete with Google, who introduced the NexusOne handset earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Vodafone has made its chief marketing officer Harit Nagal its interim global brand director, replacing David Wheldon who left last month, as exclusively revealed by Marketing Week.
