At its Sunday press conference at the 2013 Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in Barcelona, Spain, Mozilla - the not-for-profit organisation behind the Firefox web browser - announced that it will be launching mobile handsets running its own mobile-devices OS, the Firefox OS.

Terming the Firefox OS as an "open alternative" which will take on the Apple iOS as well as the Google Android OS, Mozilla said at the press conference that it has signed up 18 mobile operators - including the likes of Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, Sprint, China Unicom, KDDI, Singtel, and Telenor - for its Firefox OS-based handsets.

Showing off the first commercial version of the much-anticipated Firefox OS on the eve of the 2013 MWC opening on Monday, Mozilla said that the software will be launched around the middle of this year.

The mobile handsets running Mozilla's forthcoming Firefox OS will reportedly be failry akin in appearance to the smartphones based on other systems; and will boast a wide range of apps - including a mapping app from Nokia - that will be made available on an online store.

About Mozilla's move to launch mobile handsets running the Firefox OS, the company's CEO Gary Kovacs said: "With the support of our vibrant community and dedicated partners, our goal is to level the playing field and usher in an explosion of content and services that will meet the diverse needs of the next two billion people online."