AT&T eyes future sale of Palm Pre

AT&T Inc's Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said on Wednesday that the No. 2 U.S. mobile service would be keen to sell Palm Inc's

high-profile Pre phone at some point in the future.

Pre -- due to go on sale on June 6 exclusively at AT&T's smaller rival Sprint Nextel -- is seen as Palm's best hope to win back market share lost to rivals such as Apple Inc's iPhone.

AT&T is the exclusive U.S. provider for the iPhone. In response to a question about the Pre at the All Things Digital conference near San Diego, Stephenson said Sprint currently has the exclusive rights for Pre but added that he would like to sell the Pre one day.

Would I like to see that on our network some day? Of course I would, said Stephenson. We obviously talk to all the handset manufacturers. We want a broad selection of devices in the lineup. That's important. Devices right now are what's driving the customer adoption as much as anything.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic in San Diego, writing by Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)