Luxury phone firm Vertu puts Android system into €7,900 Ti

Vertu, the pioneer manufacturer of luxury mobile phones, is expecting a bumper year with the release of the Ti, the company's first smartphone to run Google's Android operating system.

The company's president and chief executive, Perry Oosting, speaking after Friday night's launch in Hong Kong, said: "It has to be and it will be a record year [for sales] because we have an incredibly strong roadmap besides this product."

The British company, which has annual sales of €300 million (HK$3 billion), counts China - the mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau - as its biggest market worldwide.

The Ti marks Vertu's first new product since the European private equity group EQT VI bought Nokia's 90 per cent stake in the firm for an unspecified amount in October.

The Ti, first introduced in London last month, is a 3G smartphone that has a durable titanium-and-leather case, a 3.7-inch touch display built with scratchproof sapphire crystal, and a ruby key for instant access to exclusive professional services. Prices start at €7,900.

It also has the Android 4.0 system, a dual-core 1.7-gigahertz processor, a 64-gigabyte memory, an 8-megapixel back camera and a 1.3MP front camera, and near-field communication technology, used for contactless payment transactions.

Like luxury wristwatches, each Ti is handmade by a single craftsman at the company's headquarters in Hampshire, England, where Vertu has about 1,000 staff.