(Image courtesy of AppleInsider via Engadget)

Existing manufacturing partner Foxconn isn’t going anywhere, but it appears that Apple has cut a new deal for an additional company to help manufacture the next iPhone.

Everyone’s favorite Taiwanese rumor journal, DigiTimes, is reporting today that Asus subsidiary Pegatron Technology has been inked for OEM production of the next-generation iPhone due this summer, according to AppleInsider. Pegatron won’t replace existing partner Foxconn (also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.) -- instead, Apple will ramp up to have both companies manufacturing the headsets.

Pegatron declined to comment on the record for the DigiTimes story, but most telling is that the company expects its handset shipments to “grow substantially in 2010,” according to the report. In additional to cell phone handsets, Pegatron also produces LCD televisions and is also on deck to manufacture Microsoft’s Project Natal motion controller for the Xbox 360 this year.

This also isn’t the first time that Pegatron has been tied to the iPhone: Last fall a report emerged that the company would be manufacturing a new hybrid, world mode phone that would allow calls on both CDMA and GSM networks, which would open the doors to the iPhone being available on Verizon Wireless here in the U.S.

This week, a number of tech blogs also reported that a rumored new version of the new iPhone was right under our noses all along, sitting atop an iPad prototype which was leaked the night before it was official unveiled by Apple. The next iPhone isn’t expected until June, which has become Apple’s traditional launch month for the device.