According to industry sources, Asustek will manufacture Garmin’s highly anticipated Nuvifone. Roger Jollis, Garmin’s director of OEM and mobile marketing said Garmin had placed strong emphasis on its own vertical integration and had never outsourced its products. But as the handset required lot of validation and RF technology expertise Garmin partnered with a Taiwanese cellphone maker to complete the development in time. Even though he didn’t identify the manufacturing partner, but industrial sources points out Asustek, as the company has been working on a secret project with Garmin for past two years. Roger also added that Nuvifone would not be Garmin’s only handset as the company plans to announce more handsets in 2010. The Nuvifone will be released in 4th quarter of 2008.
[Via DigiTimes]