Microsoft Corp launched two new phones aimed at young people on Monday, marking a fresh assault on the low end of the growing smartphone market, where BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd and Apple Inc now dominate.

The software company’s first foray into designing its own phones comes six months before it rolls out its new Windows software for phones made by handset makers HTC Corp, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and others, which should be a more direct challenge to Apple’s iPhone and Google Inc’s Android phones.

“Kin is an interesting attempt to target the 15 to 25 market,” said Ross Rubin, consumer electronics and wireless industry analyst at market research firm NPD Group.

Success will depend heavily on the pricing of data plans, said Rubin, which is not expected for a few more weeks. Microsoft did not say how much the phones would sell for.

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Microsoft Corp is set to announce its long-awaited “Project Pink” phones early next week, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday, as the world’s largest software company attempts to gain traction in the growing market for young smartphone users.

The mobile phones, to be sold by top U.S. mobile operator Verizon Wireless, are being targeted at heavy users of social network sites, according to sources. They will have a different name when the launch is officially announced.

In photos leaked to a tech blog last month, the new phones appear to be stylish, updated versions of Microsoft’s Sidekick device, which is popular with the youth market.

The new phones, which likely won’t be on the market until summer, are to be made by Sidekick manufacturer Sharp Corp, sources said.

Microsoft has sent invitations to media to attend an event in San Francisco next Monday, but declined to comment further. A representative of Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between U.S. phone company Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group plc, also declined comment.

The new phone does not appear to be a central part of Microsoft’s main thrust in the mobile phone market, which is centered on the revamp of the Windows software it licenses to handset makers, which will be available later this year.

Microsoft hopes its Windows Phone 7, launched with great fanfare in February, will win back share from BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd and iPhone maker Apple Inc, and beat back newcomer Google Inc, which is making ground with Android-powered phones and its own Nexus One.

Microsoft is losing share fast in the U.S. smartphone market, according to tech research firm comScore, dropping 4 percentage points to 15.1 percent between November and February.

Ahead of it are Apple, with 25.4 percent, and Research in Motion with 42.1 percent. Google is the fastest-growing rival, now holding 9 percent of the market.

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Sharp’s latest 3-D displays deliver bright, clear imagery without the cumbersome glasses usually required for such technology. Now the bad news: They only work on a 3-inch (7.5-centimeter) screen held one foot (30 centimeters) from the viewer’s face.

Sharp Corp. demonstrated liquid crystal screens Friday for mobile devices that showed 3-D animation, touch-panel screens that switched from one 3-D photo to another and a display connected to a 3-D video camera.

Movies and TVs in 3-D are no longer surprising. Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp. of Japan, as well as South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics, already sell or are planning 3-D TVs.

The drawback until now has been the need for special glasses, which show different images to the right eye and the left eye. Sharp’s 3-D technology doesn’t require them because the displays are designed to shoot different images to each eye.

The technology may be applied to TVs in the future, said Executive Managing Officer Yoshisuke Hasegawa. But he acknowledged it now works better when the distance between the viewer and the screen is fixed.

The smaller displays, shown Friday, are intended for mobile devices such as cell phones, game machines and digital cameras.

The 3-D animation on the handheld screen looked like a miniature version of the 3-D animation we are used to seeing on larger TV screens, though images were less convincing than those seen in a darkened cinema.

Photos on the touch screen were less clear and even a bit blurry from certain angles, though Sharp said its latest technology does away with such “ghosting” effects.

Still, the system promises gaming and technology fans the potential for pop-up e-mail messages and taking 3-D photos of friends.

The technology is likely to show up in the next DSi portable game machine, which Nintendo Co. says will be 3-D. Sharp refused to confirm the names of companies it was supplying.

Sharp expects 3-D to replace two-dimensional displays the same way color replaced black-and-white in movies and television.

“The arrival of mobile 3-D is just around the corner,” Hasegawa told reporters.

Sharp tried to sell 3-D products in the past but failed, largely because of poor image quality. This time, the Osaka-based company has made breakthroughs for displays that are twice as bright and clear as existing 3-D displays.

The displays can continue to show 3-D images when they are turned to the side, a key feature for smartphones, according to Sharp. Mass production of the 3-D LCDs is set to start in the first half of fiscal 2010, which began April 1, it said.

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