Vodafone Group Plc, the world's biggest provider of mobile-phone services, will offer a new touch-screen version of the BlackBerry handset under an exclusive agreement with Research in Motion Ltd.

The handset, called Storm, has a clickable touch-screen instead of a traditional keyboard and will go on sale next month in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand, the Newbury, England-based company said in an e-mailed statement today. In the U.S., the handset will be available exclusively from Verizon Wireless, the second-biggest U.S. mobile-phone company. Vodafone owns a 45 percent stake in the U.S. carrier.

The new BlackBerry handset will compete with other so-called smartphones, such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone and Google's G1 device. The market for smartphones that can send e-mail and access the Web may more than double to 288 million units in 2009, according to Stamford, Connecticut-based researcher Gartner Inc.

The BlackBerry Storm was purpose built for Vodafone, the mobile-phone company said in the release. The handset has a 480 x 360 pixel resolution display, Web browsing, music and video downloads, satellite navigation, messaging and access to social networking sites.

Falling prices and the popularity of the iPhone are curbing profitability at phone makers such as Research In Motion. The company said last month that its gross margin, or the percentage of sales left after production costs, will drop to 47 percent in the fiscal quarter through November, from 50.7 percent last quarter.

Source:Bloomberg