High Tech Computer Corp (HTC,
"We think the US market for Windows-based phones" has much more room to grow, HTC president Peter Chou (
Taoyuan-based HTC shipped 7 million mobile devices last year, including personal digital assistants and cellphones.
HTC is supplying more handsets to US phone operators, including Cingular Wireless LLC, Verizon Communications Inc and Sprint Nextel Corp, after doubling revenue last year via sales to companies in Europe, its biggest market. HTC is also buying a controlling stake in Dopod International Corp (多普達) in order to expand sales of Windows-based handsets.
"In the US, operators have 90 percent of the market" for handset sales, Chou said. "So if you want to do business you need to work with them."
The company expects the proportion of sales from the US to triple to 30 percent this year from less than 10 percent last year.
EUROPE
The share from Europe is forecast to drop to 40 percent from about 50 percent to 60 percent last year, Chou said.
HTC's share of the market for Windows-based cellphones is around 60 percent to 70 percent, Chou said.
The company expects spending on research and development to expand to US$100 million from US$84 million last year.
HTC tripled net income to NT$11.8 billion (US$358 million) last year, while sales rose to NT$73.1 billion from NT$36.4 billion. The company is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings by Thursday.
Shares of HTC fell 2.1 percent to NT$790 in Taipei, compared with a 1.3 percent decline in the benchmark TAIEX index.
The stock has gained 54 percent this year.
On June 2, HTC agreed to buy a controlling stake in cellphone maker Dopod. HTC currently produces phones for Dopod and is the company's sole supplier, Chou said.
"We would like to have Dopod focus on Asia," which accounts for around 30 percent of HTC's sales, Chou said.
Dopod is 90 percent owned by HTC chairwoman Cher Wang's (
LARGEST SHARE
Cher Wang is HTC's largest shareholder with a stake of more than 20 percent, Chou said.
Wang is Taiwan's richest woman according to Forbes magazine, and is the daughter of Taiwan's richest man, Wang Yung-ching (王永慶), founder of Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團).
"Even though I have a very rich boss, I try very hard to operate independently" of the family company, Chou said.
HTC also works independently of its largest partner, Microsoft, and has not committed to a Windows-only business model, Chou said.
The company has no plans for the moment to develop phones based on the rival Symbian operating system.
But HTC is open to the idea, he said.
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
STABLE DEMAND: Delta supplies US clients in the aerospace, defense and machinery segments, and expects second-half sales to be similar to the first half Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) expects its US automation business to remain steady in the second half, with no signs of weakening client demand. With demand from US clients remaining solid, its performance in the second half is expected to be similar to that of the first half, Andy Liu (劉佳容), general manager of the company’s industrial automation business group, said on the sidelines of the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show in Taipei on Wednesday. The company earlier reported that revenue from its automation business grew 7 percent year-on-year to NT$27.22 billion (US$889.98 million) in the first half, accounting for 11 percent
A German company is putting used electric vehicle batteries to new use by stacking them into fridge-size units that homes and businesses can use to store their excess solar and wind energy. This week, the company Voltfang — which means “catching volts” — opened its first industrial site in Aachen, Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders. With about 100 staff, Voltfang says it is the biggest facility of its kind in Europe in the budding sector of refurbishing lithium-ion batteries. Its CEO David Oudsandji hopes it would help Europe’s biggest economy ween itself off fossil fuels and increasingly rely on climate-friendly renewables. While
RSS