Google Inc's Nexus One smartphone will be sold in Vodafone retail stores in Britain at the end of the month and the company said there are no longer plans to offer a version of the phone that uses the Verizon Wireless network in the United States.

The moves represent a shift in Google's plans to expand into the mobile phone market, less than four months after the Internet search giant unveiled the Nexus One to great fanfare.

In a post on the official Nexus One blog on Monday, Google said Vodafone Group Plc was now accepting pre-orders for the phone in the United Kingdom and would start selling the phones in the company's UK stores, online and over the phone on April 30.

The Nexus One, a sleek, touchscreen phone that uses Google's Android software and was developed in partnership with handset maker HTC, is the first consumer electronics device that Google has sold directly to consumers and comes as Google is increasingly in competition with iPhone maker Apple Inc.

Google broke with traditional mobile industry business practices by selling the Nexus One exclusively online, eschewing the wireless carrier retail stores that serve as a key distribution channel for cell phones.

Google initially released the Nexus One in a version that uses Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA wireless network in the United States, and promised a version for the Verizon Wireless network in the Spring.

We won't be selling a Nexus One with Verizon and this is a reflection of the amazing innovation happening across the open Android ecosystem, Google said in an emailed statement.

Google said Verizon Wireless customers who want an Android phone with the power of the Nexus One can get the Dorid Incredible by HTC.

Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Brenda Raney referred questions on Nexus One to Google and noted the phone was to have been sold by Google directly.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic with additional reporting by Sinead Carew and Ian Sherr; editing by Andre Grenon)

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