HTC celebrates Friday its fifteenth anniversary. The Taiwanese manufacturer was a long time active only if oem, the maker of smartphones under a different name to be released. Since 2007 are HTC’s under his own name in the store.
HTC was established in 1997 co-founded by Peter Chou, the Taiwanese, who are still the director of the company. The manufacturer would initially focus on laptops, but due to the intense competition decided the founders that it was better to focus on phones.
The first HTC-manufactured handheld of any importance was the Compaq iPAQ H3100 from 2000, a pda with a monochrome screen. Later that year, there were also versions with color screens. A breakthrough in smartphonegebied followed in 2002 with the Wallaby, who by various manufacturers and providers, was sold. The most famous name is O2 XDA, a name that still lives on in the name of the ontwikkelaarsforum XDA Developers. In the Netherlands got the MDA Vario devices of T-Mobile known.
In addition, HTC phones for other manufacturers. Among more Palms, Windows Mobile smartphones such as the Treo Pro, were designed and made by HTC. Also the Xperia X1 from Sony Ericsson from 2008 was of Taiwanese origin.
HTC decided in 2006 to smartphones under its own name.Until that time, were private aircraft under the name Qtek on the market. In China used HTC the name Dopod, also after 2006. The first step to the consumer market was the HTC Touch from 2007, a phone with Windows Mobile 6 and HTC’s own TouchFlo interface. A breakthrough came in 2008, when the design-oriented device Touch Diamond was presented.
The Taiwanese manufacturer was the first hardwaremaker who joined the Open Handset Alliance, an initiative of Google to of Android a opensourcebesturingssysteem. Although Google first with competitor LG in the sea, wanted to, chose the zoekbedrijf eventually for HTC for the first Android phone to make. The design of the T-Mobile G1 was largely derived from Google, which makes the phone look very different-looking than the Windows Mobile smartphones from HTC. The G1 came in the beginning of 2009 in the Netherlands, but was a few months earlier, already on sale in the U.s. market.
Android quickly grew into a more important operating system than Windows Mobile. The last appealing device on Windows Mobile, the HD2 by the end of 2009. This phone, the first smartphone for the mass market with a 4.3″ screen and the only Windows Mobile 6 smartphone with a capacitive screen, came with Windows Mobile 6.5, but I got it after the release of the ability to other operating systems, including virtually all versions of Android up to 4.0.
Microsoft saw that HTC less attention to Windows Mobile, and announced a deal with LG to bring a lot of new models to present. When Windows Phone 7 came on the market in 2010, however, it proved again HTC to be that most devices had finished, five of the ten models worldwide release, was an HTC. A few months later announced Nokia Windows Phones. At the end of 2011, HTC is still only two models with Windows Phone.
HTC had on Android a head start and was the first manufacturer with a proprietary skin: htc Sense, the Hero in 2009. Until the end of 2010 remained HTC most of Android devices sales, until Samsung with its Galaxy S-line is a worldwide success and that stick took over.
After the successful growth until the beginning of 2011, the company is in a dip. The top models Sensation and Sensation XE were poorly received and poorly sold, giving the company a few times, a profit warning released. Director Chou has announced that it is turning on and deleted a lot of models for 2012, so that more attention could be models for 2012 that came out. Now that HTC has this year, four aircraft for the Dutch market are presented: the One X, One S, One V and Desire C. The manufacturer put in the last time on additional services, such as video service HTC Watch and the integration with Beats Audio.
Although the new phones were well received, seem like the problems are not over yet; HTC recently gave a warning that sales this quarter, again lower than expected. Nevertheless, it was HTC one of the big three telefoonmakers that this year’s profits; Samsung and Apple being the other.
HTC likes to brag about his speed with the integration of new technology in smartphones. So it was the first with a 3g smartphone, the first with a 4g device- the Max 4G from 2008 – and brought the first smartphone with quadcore processor, in the form of the One X.
It is unclear what is the future of HTC goes to meet. On Windows Phone, Nokia is the dominant party, while Samsung on Android the sheets out. Thus it appears the manufacturer is forced to a position in the margin. HTC is indeed in some respects have been the first, but it has an advantage of never to be able to convert to a long-term market leadership.