[efjay]

The US phone market is firmly in the grip of the carriers - if they dont pick it up there is practically zero chance people will be willing to buy such a phone; only a very small number of people will buy unlocked as well as the fact that there arent many options to buy unlocked from a B&M store. Plus only GSM phones can be used this way, CDMA phones have to be provisioned on their network, so the choice is even narrower especially when you consider only 1 GSM network is compatible with the frequencies in use elsewhere in the world. In contrast to Europe where you can pick up a phone from a phone reseller who will sell you a contract and a phone at a subsidised price which means there is a vastly larger market for device makers to sell to.

If you look at what currently is available in the US you will see there are only a few WM models available (some on multiple networks) so 10 doesnt really seem that far off.