MANILA, Philippines--Globe Telecom will be among the first telecom operators in Asia to officially carry Apple's popular iPhone handset.

A two-paragraph statement on Globe's website said the mobile communications firm had signed an agreement with Apple along with Singapore's Singtel, India's Bharti Airtel and Australia's Optus.

More information will be released at a later date, according to the statement.

The iPhone was launched in the United States January 2007 exclusively to AT&T. Apple said it would launch the iPhone in Asia this year but up until today it has not mentioned specific details.

This latest announcement has been preceded by months of speculation, a usual strategy from Apple when launching a new product.

SingTel owns Optus and holds a 30.5-percent stake in Bharti and 44.5 percent in Globe. As of Dec. 31, 2007, SingTel had about 2.3 million mobile subscribers in Singapore and around 7 million in Australia. Bharti currently has about 64 million subscribers, while Globe reported a 21.3 million mobile subscriber base for the quarter ended March 31.

The announcement comes as Apple looks to expand sales of the iPhone--a combination phone, music player and Web browser--that was launched in the US in 2007.

On Wednesday, America Movil, the top mobile phone operator in Latin America, said it had inked a deal to bring the iPhone to more than a dozen countries in that region starting later this year.

Apple has so far signed exclusive deals for the iPhone with AT&T Inc. in the United States, O2 in Britain, T-Mobile in Germany and France Telecom's Orange wireless arm in France.

The American company has also in the past few weeks signed deals to sell the device in Canada as well as in Italy, while Vodafone Group PLC, the world's biggest mobile company by sales, will sell it in a total of 10 countries, including Australia, India, Italy and Turkey.

Apple has so far sold 5.4 million iPhones worldwide, based on data as of the end of Apple's fiscal second quarter, which ended in March. Apple has a goal of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of this year.