Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has been generating a lot of excitement recently with its recent decisions to launch smartphones that run pure, unadulterated Android as their operating system, with no overlays by the handset manufacturer. There was some buzz around the Android fanboys when Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. announced a Google Edition of the Samsung Galaxy S4 that will run pure, vanilla Android on it. Well, apparently the concept of pure Android is catching on in popularity, because a new smartphone is being released that also will be pretty vanilla.
However, this Android phone is one of the more popular models on the market. It is being announced that HTC will soon be releasing its own version of vanilla Android smartphone with the HTC One Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Edition, expected to hit store shelves sometime this summer. There is one real caveat behind this news, though; the company revealed through a source that this will be a limited edition distribution of the device.
HTC has had very good success with its Sense user interface overlaid of the Android platform by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) to the tune of about 5 million HTC One handsets sold so far. Now we don’t know who came up with the number of devices that will be sold – whether this is HTC’s decision or 
If the math is right and we carry the one properly, that would mean that those Android fans who just have to have their pure experience may have to turn over some rocks to get an HTC One Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Edition, because the estimate is only about 50,000 of these devices will be sold.
There is very little information about the cost of the phone and how it will be positioned, but as a source of comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition is priced at $650 and will only be available on AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) and T-Mobile USA.
We don’t imagine this will be a whole lot different, but we also don’t know if this 50,000 number applies only in the U.S. or the total global distribution. That may be a key factor in determining the carriers that will ultimately carry this device or whether it will be unlocked and thus available for multiple carriers.
What might this mean for the overall market for Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)?
This could very well be just an experiment for Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) as it shops its vanilla, stock Android OS in the marketplace to gauge its success. There are not many smartphones that don’t have their own native UI build over the top of the OS, so this could well be a risk for Google to determine if its Android OS works well enough to sell on its own as an OS to compete with iOS, or whether it may have to remain in the background behind whatever native UI the handset will install.
If this ends up failing, Google could lose market share, so it might make sense to keep the supply of Google Edition phones to a relative few until users can give feedback and help the company assess its future in the smartphone market.
DISCLOSURE: None
