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HTC strikes supply deal with Reliance

High Tech Computer Corp (HTC, 宏達電), the world's top maker of handsets running Microsoft Corp's system, announced plans yesterday to jointly develop and supply handsets with India's Reliance Communications Ltd by the end of this month.

"The partnership with Reliance Communications will strengthen HTC's commitment to serve the growing demands of Indian consumers. With the introduction of the HTC P3000 and HTC S720, customers will soon have access to these innovative CMDA devices," HTC chief executive Peter Chou (周永明) said in a statement.

Taoyuan-based HTC told investors in late January that emergent markets would be one of the major engines fueling its growth this year. It plans to increase its revenues by 20 percent to 30 percent this year from the NT$118.6 billion (US$3.86 billion) it made last year.

At present, 80 percent of its revenues come from the US and European markets.

But last summer HTC entered the Indian market with the debut of its popular HTC Touch series in that country.

The partnership with Reliance Communications, India's biggest mobile operator, is another step by HTC to building a bigger presence in the fast-growing CDMA market in India.

The alliance also reinforces the Mumbai-based telecom operator's aim to offer a wider range of world-class PDA devices on the CDMA platform for its high-end data usage customers, Reliance said in a joint statement with HTC.

HTC will jointly develop and promote next-generation CDMA devices in India with Reliance Communications and supply two Windows-based smartphones exclusively to Reliance end of this month, the companies said.

India and China, which together command more than 60 percent of shipments in the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan, will be the growth engines for handset shipments in the region this year, International Data Corp (IDC) said in a report on Wednesday.

"We expect the India market to be particularly robust, swelling by another 19 percent in 2008," Aloysius Choong, research manager of IDC's Asia/Pacific Personal Systems research, said in the report.

Mobile phone shipments in the region are expected to increase 10 percent year-on-year to more than 400 million units this year, from 366 million units shipped last year, the market researcher's figures show.

Targeting India's top earners, HTC's two phones will sell for 19,500 rupees (NT$25,000) and 165,00 rupees.

HTC shares fell 0.94 percent to NT$635 yesterday, underperforming the benchmark TAIEX, which jumped 1.93 percent.
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