HTC: “Windows Phone 7 will give Android a run for its money”

HTC is doubling down on Windows Phone. Pictured above: The HTC Titan, powered by Windows Phone 7.5 ‘Mango’ and arriving to AT&T this Fall.

HTC, the embattled handset maker from Taiwan and the second-largest smartphone vendor in the United States, is doubling down on Microsoft’s mobile platform, seemingly to reduce its reliance on Google’s Android software which has been under heavy fire lately from Apple, Microsoft and Oracle over patents. According to ZDNet Asia, a HTC manager for Singapore said during the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango launch event:

We believe that Windows Phone 7 will eventually be better than other platforms and will give Android a run for its money.

Melvin Chua, the manager, also noted that the Windows Phone platform already accounts for nearly one-third (30 percent) of HTC’s overall sales. This subtle hint points to a possible 180-degree turn for the company that made fortunes by making and selling Android phones. It’s not terribly surprising, though. Their chairwoman Cher Wang recently went on record, saying the company discussed internally a mobile operating system purchase. “We can use any OS we want”, she was quoted as saying.

HTC shipped 12.1 million phones during the June quarter, reporting a 104 percent annual and 19 percent sequential revenue increase, doubling profits. They are a sister company of the Formosa Plastics Group which also controls VIA Technologies and S3 Graphics. HTC is embroiled in a legal battle with Apple and has been paying royalty fees to Microsoft since last year on each Android handset sold. HTC recently sued the iPhone maker using Motorola patents Google transferred to them and those obtained via their $300 million acquisition of S3 Graphics.