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View Full Version : HTC Aiming To Ship 15 Million Smartphones In 2008

Nurhisham Hussein
10-05-2007, 11:00 AM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20071003PB201.html' target='_blank'>http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20071003PB201.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"High Tech Computer (HTC) projects it will ship 15 million smartphones in 2008, up 30% from the shipment volume projected for 2007, the Chinese-language Commercial Times quoted sources at HTC as saying...HTC's share price rose by the daily 7% up-limit, to close at NT$529 (US$16.20) on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) on October 2 after the company revealed it shipped over 800,000 HTC Touch phones since it went on sale in late July."</i><br /><br />I love that last bit, given the hype and media attention a certain competitor has received over the same period - though to be fair, pricing and market segments are pretty different. I mean if market penetration was all that mattered, Nokia has everybody beat! Now as for the 15 million target, 30% growth is pretty substantial, which explains the runup in the stock price. Revenue growth was pretty awful the <a href="http://www.htc.com/investor_service/04-investor-1.htm">first half of this year</a>, so the Touch - even rushed out as it was *ahem* - gives investors hope that HTC's shift from an ODM-centric to own-brand strategy might actually pay off. The Kaiser/Tilt will also certainly help boost the Q4 bottom-line. If we're talking about 30% growth <i>next year</i> though, they'll have to be looking at releasing some pretty nifty new models - Omni and Polaris, anyone?<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> HTC's <a href="http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20071008PD206.html">September revenue</a> just hit an all time high, so the Touch <i>is</i> having giving the company a pretty good boost at least to the top-line of the P&amp;L. With the recent launch of the Tilt and Touch Dual, 4Q numbers ought to look pretty good - stay tuned.
hamishmacdonald
10-06-2007, 12:52 AM
Did you see the prototype of the Polaris someone posted a photo of here this week, pictured with the Shift? It be ugly (though not as bad as the plastic Sasquatch that is the HTC P6500).

I was excited about the Polaris and trying to hold out, but ended up buying a TyTN II when I had to send my Touch back with its third bad screen (besides which, the Touch did turn out to be underpowered for my needs, including running TextMaker, which it just couldn't do). Now that I've seen that picture -- which was nothing like the slim, handsome rendering leaked earlier this summer -- I'm happy with what I've got.

It's an adjustment to wrap my head around moving from a small device with a big VGA screen (Acer n311) to a small device with a small QVGA screen (HTC Touch) then to a large device with a small screen (HTC TyTN II). This is progress?! But the TyTN II really is a beast of a machine when it comes to functionality. And I must say that always having a keyboard to hand is proving to be really useful, despite my not having been a fan of that form factor previously. In fact, I wasn't a fan of converged devices at all, but now they've really come together (so to speak), and it just makes sense. And I would credit HTC with that.