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Last updated: Tuesday, March 17, 2009

HTC had an edge over its competitors when it rolled out the first Android-based phone with Google and T-Mobile, the G1, and it plans to keep the upper hand with the rollout of additional smartphones using the open-source mobile platform. Peter Chou, chief executive and cofounder of the Taiwan-based company, said the G1 pushed past the targeted one million units and the company plans to launch several more Android smartphones in 2009. He told an audience at the Merrill Lynch Technology Conference in Taipei that HTC plans to roll out more than three phones this year. HTC announced the HTC Magic, an Android-based phone, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The handset, often referred to as the G2, will first be sold in Europe by Vodafone, beginning in April. Sales of Linux-based smartphones were up 19 percent from 2007 to 2008, mainly because the Android-based G1 became available through T-Mobile during the fourth quarter of 2008, according to Gartner. First Out the Door HTC thrives on innovation and being first to market. It boasts about developing the first color palm-size PC, the first Microsoft-powered smartphone, the first Microsoft 3G phone, and being the first to use the Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system. HTC’s Android-based smartphones will have to compete with other vendors’ devices, including those from Nokia, which had 44 percent of the smartphone market last year, according to Gartner; Research in Motion, which had the second-greatest share with 17 percent; and Apple, which held eight percent. HTC had the smallest share, along with Sharp, with 4 percent (Gartner only counts devices branded under HTC). In the fourth quarter, global smartphone sales to end users reached 38.1 million, an increase of 3.7 percent from the same quarter in 2007, according to Gartner. For the year, global sales of smartphones reached 139.3 million, up…

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HTC Will Roll Out Multiple Android-Based Phones

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