HTC is iPhone’s ‘Quiet’ Challenger
September 8th, 2010 | by Mobile Data Group |East Asia is the world’s electronics factory, yet unless they are Japanese, producers are largely anonymous.
Now HTC, a Taiwanese maker of smart phones, is moving out of the shadows and trying to establish its own brand name as it competes with Apple’s iPhone.
HTC supplies US carriers Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile but says a year ago only one in 10 Americans knew its name. With the help of marketing by mobile carriers and HTC’s own television ads during the baseball World Series, HTC says that number is up to 40 per cent.
“We want to be one of the leaders,” said John Wang, the 13-year-old company’s chief marketing officer.
In trying to establish a global brand, HTC is following in the footsteps of another Taiwanese company, Acer, which is battling Dell for the title of second-largest personal computer maker. Other rising Taiwanese technology names include software producer Trend Micro and Asustek Computer, a maker of PCs and mobile phones.
HTC’s path to its own brand has been complicated by US carriers’ preference for many years to market its phones under their own brands.
That started to change in 2007, and the “HTC” brand started showing up on phones, as carriers figured that the company had some cachet among early adopters that they could capitalise on. HTC phones on the US market include the Droid Incredible, sold by Verizon Wireless, the HD2, sold by T-Mobile, and the Hero, sold by Sprint.
Even now, HTC is careful to avoid straining ties with carriers by promoting its own identity too aggressively. Such ties are crucial in the United States, Japan and other markets where carriers usually pick which phones to offer. In Europe and elsewhere, customers pick their own phones and buy service separately.
“I don’t think it should ever become a ‘destination phone,’ because that is very arrogant,” Wang said.
The company’s slogan, “Quietly Brilliant”, expresses both modesty and pride.
Apple, of course, is anything but quiet, and HTC sets itself apart from the US-based giant in other ways, too.