ZTE reportedly will introduce a dual-core Firefox OS phone in 2014. The company recently started selling unlocked models of its initial Firefox OS phone, the ZTE Open, on eBay US and UK for $80, following its launch in Spain, Venezuela, and Colombia earlier this year, and reportedly has already moved 100,000 units.



Earlier this week, IDG News Service quoted ZTE executive vice president He Shiyou as saying ZTE was prepping a second Firefox OS phone for release in the first half of 2014. Unlike the Cortex-A8-based, 3.5-inch ZTE Open, the new phone will offer a dual-core processor, a bigger screen, and a “revamped user experience,” says the story.





ZTE Open, version 1

Shiyou was further quoted as saying that ZTE has been pleased with the initial demand, having sold about 100,000 ZTE Open phones, and it expects sales of the existing model to eventually reach 200,000. These are small numbers compared to ZTE’s Android sales, but it appears to be a promising start for the fifth largest smartphone vendor in the world.

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Shiyou was quoted as saying that the spread of 4G networks would greatly enhance the prospects for an HTML5-based phone. “In the future, the app store business model will be no more,” he added.

The ZTE Open was the first commercial Firefox OS phone to ship, when Telefonica launched it in Spain in early July. On Aug. 1, Telefonica announced that it had begun selling the ZTE Open along with its similarly spec’d Firefox OS cousin, the Alcatel One Fire in Colombia and Venezuela. The One Fire was originally launched in Poland by Deutsche Telekom.

LG is also planning to launch a Firefox OS phone, according to various reports. Earlier this month, an FCC filing showed a LG D300G phone (pictured at right) with a roughly 4.3-inch display, WiFi, GPS, and GSM/WCDMA 850/1900MHz cellular support.

