The Hindu Business Line : HTC to offer India-specific smart phone models

Strategic alliance: Mr S. P. Shukla (right), President, Reliance Communications, and Mr Peter Chou, CEO & President, HTC Corp. at a press conference in Mumbai on Thursday. -

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Mumbai, March 20 HTC Corporation, the Taiwan-based maker of Microsoft Windows-enabled mobile handsets, intends to sell 1 million smart phones in India by 2009. In order to achieve this target, the company will come out with one or two India-specific models within the next six months, Mr Ajay Sharma, Country Manager, HTC Corporation, told Business Line on the sidelines of a news conference on Thursday.

“We will come out with smart phones that will be priced less than Rs 10,000,” said Mr Sharma. Currently, HTC has nine smart phones in the Indian market priced between Rs 11,500 to Rs 35,000. Smartphone’s are mobile phones which offer a PC-like functionality.

The company sells its handsets in India either as a stand-alone product or through an association with mobile operators. In June last year, the company had entered into a six-month tie-up with Bharti Airtel for HTC Touch, a Windows mobile-based smart phone.

India is the fastest growing market for HTC in Asia. “HTC`s India sales in the second half of 2007 went up by 300 per cent over that in the first half,” said Mr Sharma, adding that HTC is also working with other operators such as Airtel for launching new smart phone models. Globally, the company sells about 10 million handsets.

Tie-up with RComm

Separately, HTC has forayed into the CDMA market by joining hands with Reliance Communications to promote two CDMA-based smart phones. Under the alliance, two of HTC’s CDMA handsets- the HTC P3000 and HTC S720- will be exclusively provided on Reliance Communications wireless network.

HTC P3000 and the HTC S720 would be available at a market-operating price of Rs 16,500 and Rs 19,500 respectively, said Mr S.P.Shukla - President, Reliance Communications.

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