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HTC zooms past Acer and Asus to become Taiwan’s leading tech brand

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Quite an accomplishment, but not unexpected given HTC’s popularity on its home turf. According to Taiwan Economic News, Taiwan’s External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and the Bureau of Foreign Trade named handset maker HTC the country’s leading technology brand, surpassing even computer maker Acer.

In just twelve months, the HTC brand gained $2.23 billion in value and is now worth an estimated $3.6 billion. Acer and Asus trail behind HTC with their respective brands valued at $1.94 billion and $1.36 billion. Here’s how their CEO  Peter Chou commented the accolade:

You have to make an investment, spend time, and stay patient. Even if we failed, the process would help to produce positive results for Taiwan. We are not content with our current achievements, but will work harder to better compete globally, especially at this time of increasingly intense global competition.

HTC yesterday issued unaudited quarterly earnings, with revenues and net income up in the third quarter 80 and 68 percent, respectively. The company is shooting for shipments of 13.5 million smartphone units during the second half of this year. HTC is ranked the fourth smartphone maker globally. In the June quarter, they were the leading Android vendor and the second-best smartphone maker in the United States.


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

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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.


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HTC teams up with Dropbox: 5GB of free cloud storage on new HTC phones

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It is no secret that HTC is doubling down on software. One example: Recently, their chairwoman Cher Wang contemplated an operating system of their own. HTC also has Sense, an Android user interface skin, and the company has expanded into a cloud-based delivery service for music, television shows and Hollywood entertainment on the go. The latest addition to their arsenal includes cloud-storage service Dropbox, which teamed up with the Taiwanese handset maker to offer folks with select HTC smartphones a bonus three gigabytes of free storage. This is on top of the two gigabytes free storage Dropbox has always had in store for new sign-ups, resulting in five gigabytes of free storage for HTC handset owners. Plus, convincing five friends to sign up for a Dropbox account raises the free limit to a maximum of ten gigabytes of free cloud storage.

Given Dropbox’s popularity, many people will no doubt take advantage of this promotion. Using Dropbox, users can effortlessly sync their files across desktop and mobile devices, regardless of the platform. The service takes care of file system differences between the platforms, resolving conflicts and keeping platform-specific file meta data intact. This promotion is valid from October, Pocket-lint reports. It requires a new HTC handset with the Sense 3.5 software or later, which currently includes only the Rhyme and Sensation XE smartphones.

As of April 2011, more than 25 million people saved a cool 200 million files daily on Dropbox. Eagle-eyed readers could observe that computer maker Hewlett-Packard used to bundle its PlayBook tablet with a 50GB of free cloud storage on Box.net, until they shuttered webOS.


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HTC unveils Rhyme smartphone with Charm

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWTJvjLbPEc]

HTC at a New York presser yesterday introduced the Rhyme smartphone, a Verizon network exclusive in the United States and coming next month to Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. This Android phone sports a 3.7-inch WVGA display and a five-megapixel camera with auto focus, power LED flash, face detection, action burst scene, panoramic mode and other image-taking features. The Rhyme being the ladies’ phone means one thing – accessories. These include a docking station, sports armband, headphone, Bluetooth headset and car speaker. The high point? The HTC Charm, a tiny pager-like accessory designed to alerts you of incoming calls or messages. Check it out in a promo video above and notice the luxury Apple-like packaging.


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HTC schedules public event September, come see “what’s next”

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Handset maker HTC issued an intriguing invitation to its followers on Facebook, inviting them to attend a public event due September 1 in London, just in time for the IFA trade show where giants like Samsung are expected to make major product announcements. The invite simply reads, “Join us to see what’s next” and promises “a few phone treats for you to enjoy”.

HTC will almost certainly pull a series of product updates and announcements at the public event and we expect some new phones to be revealed. First and foremost, we’re keeping our fingers crossed for more information about the Ruby, which is rumored to sport impressive specs and hopefully run Ice Cream Sandwich. The company may also play the safe card with new Windows Phone ‘Mango’ phones, like Samsung, and we’re certainly looking to put our hands on the forthcoming Puccini tablet, which is apparently scheduled to hit the market later that month. Full text of the invitation below the fold.


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Nielsen: Android top phone OS in the US, HTC #1 Android vendor

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Research firm Nielsen chimed in today with a survey that puts Apple as the leading handset maker in the United States whilst Android is portrayed as the top mobile operating system in the country. Those findings follow a recent analysis which had Apple overtaking Nokia to become the world’s leading smartphone vendor in July, also corroborated  by IDC figures. According to Nielsen’s June data, Google’s Android remains the nation’s top phone platform with a 39 percent of the country’s consumer smartphone market. Apple’s iOS follows with 28 percent and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion continues to bleed share, down to 20 percent in the second quarter of 2011. Windows Mobile and Windows Phone combined grabbed nine percent, webOS and Palm OS were barely a blip with two percent, as was Nokia’s dying Symbian OS.

Apple on the other hand is the top smartphone maker in the United States that controls 28 percent of the market (excluding iPods and iPads). That’s partly “because Apple is the only company manufacturing smartphones with the iOS operating system”, Nielsen argues. HTC shares second spot with Research In Motion with a fourteen percent share of Android devices and six percent of Windows Phones for a total of 20 percent share of the whole market, same as the BlackBerry maker. HTC is also the nation’s leading Android and Windows Phone vendor with 14 percent and six percent share, respectively. No wonder Apple is suing HTC and seeking to ban import of their phones into the US…


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AT&T unveils Facebook phone (and it runs Gingerbread)

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Of course, it ain’t the first phone to be called a Facebook phone. But if you’re fan of Zuckerberg’s social network, you should give this one a chance. What’s the number one thing for Facebook (excluding photos)? Yes, status updates. That’s what guided HTC to put a dedicated Facebook share button on the aptly named Status handset, to cater to the Facebook generation that cannot fathom letting an hour go by without firing up a couple of status updates.

Apart from the button and the BlackBerry-style physical QWERTY keyboard that sits below the screen, the Status packs in an 800MHz chip, a five-megapixel camera on the back and a VGA camera out the front, a 1,250 mAh battery and a 2.6-inch touchscreen with a 480-by-320 pixel resolution – all driven by Android 2.3 Gingerbread. AT&T wouldn’t say when the phone would be available. Full release and t he complete front shot of the device right below.

via BGR

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HTC confirms: EVO 3D arriving in Europe next month

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Our European readers will be delighted to learn that HTC’s Evo 3D “will be broadly available in Europe from July”. We reviewed the handset on the Sprint network in the US and walked away pretty impressed with its glasses-free 3D display and 3D cameras which, however, compromise battery life, among other things. You may also like the big camera shutter button, a 4.3-inch display with a 540-by-960 pixel resolution and two five megapixel cameras with auto focus on the back for snapping 3D shots. The device is powered by a decent 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon chip and runs the latest Android 2.3 Gibgerbread release for smartphones. Full release below.


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HTC keeps getting put in place by fans: Desire getting Gingerbread after all

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This is my next reports HTC has changed its mind and will bring Android 2.3 Gingerbread to the Desire after all. HTC’s UK office posted on their Facebook page two hours ago:

Contrary to what we said earlier, we are going to bring Gingerbread to HTC Desire

Just a day ago, HTC argued via Facebook that the Desire wouldn’t be getting Gingerbread because they “can’t shovel Sense on it as well” due to constrained RAM. Interesting how they fixed that limitation just 24 hours later. HTC also announced last month it would unlock all of its phones’ bootloaders.


HTC London Meetup in April of 2011: You know, Apple fans aren’t the only ones lining up for product launches


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