Google said Tuesday that it and a Chinese cellphone service company had postponed the release this week of two mobile phones that would use Google's Android software.

Google did not give a reason for the delay, but a person briefed on the situation said the company did not feel that the phones should be released given the current uncertainty over its Chinese operations and its Chinese-language search engine. The company announced last week that it would negotiate with Chinese officials over the government's unwelcome requirement that Google censor searches on its Chinese search engine, Google.cn. The company, based in Northern California, said it could shut down or curtail operations in China if the government did not relent.

Google made last week's announcement after it discovered that hacking attacks traced to mainland China had been directed at its security infrastructure and that of more than 30 other companies based in the United States. Google was also frustrated by separate attacks against the Google e-mail accounts of rights advocates working on China issues.

Opponents of China's complex system of Internet censorship, nicknamed the Great Firewall, and of the authoritarian nature of the Communist Party in general were pleased with Google's move, though some skeptics say Google has little to lose from withdrawing from China since its search engine has a relatively small market share here; Baidu, which runs a homegrown search engine, is dominant.

The announcement that Google and China Unicom were postponing the release of the cellphones showed that Google has more at stake in China than just the revenue from Google.cn.

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