IT Guru

The History of HTC

Initially the company manufactured laptops, but soon turned its attention to the rapidly growing smartphone market. The foundation of HTC's success was the decision to manufacture devices not under its own name, but to offer mobile operators ready-made devices with their own logos.

HTC Corporation was founded in 1997 by Cher Wang, HT Cho and Peter Chou. Initially the company manufactured laptops, but soon turned its attention to the rapidly growing smartphone market. The foundation of HTC's success was the decision to manufacture devices not under its own name, but to offer mobile operators ready-made devices with their own logos. The first significant products were The Palm Treo 650 and the iPAQ, launched in 2000. T-Mobile, Orange, O2 and Vodafone became HTC partners.

In 2004, the company nonetheless decided to build and market devices under its own brand Qtek; the company Dopod was established, whose mission was to handle product distribution in the Asian market. However, in 2006 the company made a strategic decision - to market all products under a single brand, HTC.

Currently HTC has established a partnership with Microsoft in the production of mobile devices and is the leading manufacturer of Windows Mobile smartphones. In 2006, the company created a revolutionary smartphone - the world's first 3G device based on Windows Mobile, naming it the HTC MTeoR.

On 13 November 2008, HTC formed a collaboration with Russian WiMAX mobile operator Yota, offering the world's first smartphone - the HTC MAX 4G - capable of operating on both a GSM network and a mobile WiMAX network.

Only on 5 January 2010, in collaboration with Google, was the Nexus One communicator created on an Android basis, thereby initiating the production of Android-based devices. Currently HTC's largest product range consists of Android OS-based smartphones. Slightly later, in 2009, HTC supplemented Android with its own developed shell HTC Sense and launched the HTC Hero.

HTC Android

16 February 2010 is also the birthday of my HTC phone - the HTC Desire. The smartphone's codename is HTC Bravo and its specs are similar to the Nexus One. Incidentally, on 1 August 2011 HTC announced Android 2.3 Gingerbread improvements for HTC Desire phones; however, due to incompatibility with versions from some regions (e.g. Germany), the update was not included in the official Firmware-On-The-Air.

CNET UK awarded it 9.2/10 points in a smartphone review on 29 March 2010; TechRadar gave it 5/5 stars.

In March 2010, Apple filed claims over the infringement of 20 patents. HTC responded with a counter-claim, accusing Apple of infringing 5 of its patents. The outcome of the dispute is unknown, but HTC is not the only Asian smartphone manufacturer against which Apple has filed patent infringement claims.

In June 2010, HTC released the 4G-compatible smartphone HTC Evo 4G, primarily targeting the US market, but following successful cooperation with China Mobile, the device was also offered in the Chinese market.

On 22 March 2011, HTC presented at the CTI Wireless exhibition the first smartphone to operate in 3D mode, called the HTC Evo 3D.