Google to test its first modular smartphone in Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Google today announced it will unveil a modular smartphone in Puerto Rico this year as part of a pilot program that will allow people to choose their own hardware based on their needs and interests.

The company will partner with Mexico-based carrier Claro and local carrier Open Mobile to offer the product, which will be sold from free-standing stores that look like food trucks, said Jessica Beavers, a Google marketing executive.

She said Puerto Rico was chosen in part because more than 90 percent of households on the island of nearly 3.7 million people use a cellphone and 77 percent of Internet access occurs through mobile devices.

"All of this makes for a truly interesting carrier landscape," she said at a module developers conference at Google's headquarters in California. "Mobile devices are a huge part of daily life" in Puerto Rico.

The pilot program is still being developed, but Beavers said she envisions stores first opening in the capital of San Juan, followed by Ponce, the island's second-largest city. Stores would eventually open in other cities.