Taiwan computer maker Acer anticipates its smartphone business to remain unprofitable until 2013 and intends to grow its business by signing more agreements with Chinese telecom carriers.

Acer head of the smartphone business ST Liew was quoted by The Wall Street Journal saying that the company is in negotiations with China Unicom to offer Acer-brand smartphones.

"PC is the main business for Acer but we want to make the smartphone business grow big in the future," said Liew.

The company said that it will continue working with its strategic partners in China to create an improved product and service offerings.

Last week, Acer had postponed the launch of its first smartphone using a mobile operating system developed by a subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group.

The phone called CloudMobile A800 would have been the first smartphone to run on Alibaba’s Aliyun mobile operating system.

The launch was postponed as Acer’s software partner Google expressed concerns about the new device saying that it was a non-compatible version of Android.

Earlier this year, Acer had signed an agreement to launch a smartphone through China Mobile.

In August 2012, Acer had launched two new smartphones, Liquid Gallant and Liquid Gallant Duo, which runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.

China will overtake the US as the biggest market for smartphones in 2012 amid a surge in low-cost handsets, according to a survey from IDC.

IDC said China will account for 26.5% of all smartphone shipments in 2012, compared to 17.8% for the US.