SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co unveiled its entrant in the tablet race, announcing a touchscreen device called the TouchPad to try to steal some momentum from Apple's popular iPad.

The 9.7-inch tablet runs on the webOS mobile operating system, which HP acquired last summer in its $1.2 billion purchase of handheld device pioneer Palm. Pricing and other details will be announced later.

The world's largest technology company by revenue also announced new webOS smartphones, the ``Veer'' and the ``Pre3.''

WebOS is widely viewed as a strong platform, but HP faces an uphill battle to gain traction in the mobile market. Its products are arriving late to a market already crawling with competition from Apple and devices based on Google's Android.

Shares of Palo Alto, California-based HP were up 0.7 percent at $48.49 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq. (Reporting by Gabriel Madway, editing by Matthew Lewis)