By Alistair Barr

An audacious effort by Google Inc. to upend the way smartphones are designed, built and sold has hit a snag on the way to Puerto Rico.

Google's Project Ara is designing a "modular" smartphone with components that can be replaced and upgraded through a hardware marketplace similar to an app store. Google planned to begin selling the device in a pilot test in Puerto Rico this year, in partnership with big Latin American cellular carriers OpenMobile and Claro, part of América Móvil.

However, a Google spokeswoman said Monday that Ara won't be going to Puerto Rico. On Twitter, the Project Ara team said it is considering a few locations in the U.S. for a test in 2016, appending a tweet with " #yeswearelate."

One person previously involved in Project Ara said the team was having difficulty taking the project from prototype to the higher-volume production that would be needed to make a pilot work. The person said that, as of April, the team had tested the device only at limited temperature ranges, suggesting a launch this year would be a struggle.

The Google spokeswoman declined to comment on the reasons for the delay.

The cancellation of the Puerto Rico test is a setback for Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group, or ATAP, headed by Regina Dugan. That group seeks to develop new mobile devices, software and services in two years or less. After that, projects are typically killed, passed on to other parts of Google, or spun out into independent businesses.

However, Project Ara, a high-profile project for ATAP, had already been given an extension beyond two years. Ms. Dugan said earlier this year that some projects are given more time if executives deem them important enough and there isn't a natural home for them elsewhere at Google.

Write to Alistair Barr at alistair.barr@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 17, 2015 19:31 ET (23:31 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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