Phones: Incredible, Rhyme, Evo, Sensation, Desire, Salsa
Entered market: 1998
Latest Model: Evo 3D, Incredible S
- Constant innovators, releasing more phones every quarter than anyone
- Usually the first manufacturer to try something new
- High powered handsets appeal to early-adopters
- Huge range of handsets but hard to hold up any one model as world-class
- Long spec sheet distracts from making a better user experience
- Great design, but build quality can feel more disposable than competition
HTC's future plans and developmentsToo many to list when it comes to handsets. HTC has a finger in every part of the hardware pie, offering 3D handsets, girl-friendly handsets, tablets, keyboard phones, low price multimedia phones, big camera phones, sliding phones – anything that can be done with a smartphone, HTC does it and will be doing more of it. More interesting is recent chatter that HTC will be offering its own unique operating system to compete with Android, with no restrictions on content for 3rd party apps.
History of HTCHTC began life as a maker of cheap but feature packed laptops. Like many Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturers, these units would often be rebadged by companies in local markets. When HTC started moving into wireless handsets, one of its customers was Palm, who licensed the Treo brand of early touchscreen handsets to HTC.
HTC continued putting its hardware everywhere it could, manufacturing the first Windows Mobile handsets as sleek, lightweight plastic black rectangles.
HTC can boast a number of firsts – first touchscreen, first smartphone, first Windows Mobile device and first Android device. It maintains an open and forward thinking approach to software, often taking a hands-off approach to modders and hackers who want to get into the guts of their handsets.
MarketplaceHTC currently owns about 20% of the Australian smartphone market. There’s another market, somewhere between smartphones and featurephones, where HTC does battle with Huawei, a Chinese manufacturer of cheap handsets that do a lot of stuff. Huawei handsets are usually re-badged by the company selling them, as Telstra or Vodafone handsets. These are the $49 prepaid handsets with keypads, non-touchscreens and a few internet-lite applications built in. HTC is still superior to Huawei in terms of build quality, and no longer develops for this market, but some handsets persist.
HTC smartphone providersEvery major provider will want to sell you an HTC handset, and they rank amongst the most affordable in every category. Vodafone has the Sensation, a multimedia powerhouse with a free pair of high-end headphones in the box, for $0 on a $29 plan, or the impressive
3D Evo for $0 on a $49 plan.
HTC will remain the provider of choice for customers who want more bang for their buck. Expect HTC to continue innovating past the competition for some time to come.