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Garmin-ASUS joint-venture officially launched yesterday its first Smartphone on Chunghwa telecom’s network in Taiwan. The ‘Nuvifone M20′ has a 2.8-inch touch screen and runs Windows Mobile operating system. Chunghwa is the largest wireless carrier in Taiwan with around 9 million mobile subscribers.

ASUS expects to enter the Chinese market with Nuvifone before the end of the year through retail channels. The Taiwanese company expects to sell 1 million Nuvifone in 2010.

Coming to AT&T in the US?

Earlier this month Garmin’s COO Cliff Pemble stated during a conference call with financial analysts: “In the United States, the G60 is currently in carrier field testing in anticipation of a Q4 launch. The G60 and M20 will be available in parts of Europe during the back-half of the year. As we’ve said before, we will provide additional details as we near the launch date.”

AT&T would be the wireless carrier in the United States according to ASUS sources quoted by several journalists attending the Nuvifone launch in Taiwan yesterday.

Market research firm NPD Group released today a report showing that Smartphones reached 28% of all cell phones sold on the US market in the second quarter of this year. This figure increased 47% against the same quarter last year.

“Despite their ties to pricey data plans, the rich Internet access capabilities of smartphones are attracting consumers wooed by lower device prices,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at The NPD Group.

Apple iPhone 3G and RIM Blackberry Curve were the top-selling smartphones according to NPD. A Canalys research’s report issued earlier this week shows that RIM is leading the US market with 52% market share followed by Apple and HTC (see chart below).

Wi-Fi and Touch screen

Wi-Fi capability increased three-fold since last year, with 20 percent of all new handsets equipped with this capability. Touch screens on both feature phones and smartphones have also seen tremendous growth since last year, with 26 percent of all new handsets purchased in Q2 including this feature; physical QWERTY keyboards, by comparison, were available in 35 percent of handsets sold.