High Tech Computer Corp. wants its day in the sun and plans to begin selling phones under its own “HTC” brand, a departure from the anonymous, original design manufacturer role the company has played over the past several years in supplying smart phones and PDAs to carriers and original equipment manufacturers in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Founded in 1997 and based in Taiwan, HTC uses Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile operating system in high-end handsets for carriers and OEMs. The vast majority of the company’s phones have been sold with branding from other companies, although some phones in Europe featured HTC’s Qtek brand.
HTC’s new, self-branding effort will be accompanied by new devices, customer support and marketing efforts, particularly in Europe. In the U.S., however, HTC said it will likely continue selling devices through its handset and carrier customers.
While stepping out under its own name, HTC said it would continue to provide products and services to its traditional carrier and OEM customers, which typically place their own brand on devices from ODMs such as HTC. Observers will be watching to see how effective the company can be in playing both roles, which conceivably could displease major customers accustomed to HTC’s anonymity.
HTC joins Pantech Group and other high-volume ODMs that apparently concluded that to survive and effectively compete in a market increasingly dominated by the top half-dozen handset vendors, which together command about 85 percent of the global market, they must develop their own brand identity and communicate that to the public.
HTC’s branding campaign will begin with two handsets: The “MTeor,” a slim, candybar-style 3G smart phone, and the “TyTN,” an enterprise device with tri-band UMTS capabilities that allows global roaming on GSM, GPRS, EDGE and Wi-Fi networks.
