HTC Magic shipments near 1 million units: CEO

HTC Corp (宏達電), which made the world’s first handset running the Android system supported by Google Inc, expects shipments of its second Android phone — HTC Magic — to hit 1 million units in the next month or two, a company executive said yesterday.

Although the global recession is taking a toll on sales of mobile phones and other electronics, HTC chief executive officer Peter Chou (周永明) said “the sales of HTC Magic look good.”

Shipments of HTC Magic may reach 1 million units “within one or two months,” Chou said.

That would be three or four months after the Android-powered mobile phones first went on sale in Europe, along with telecom operator Vodafone’s services.

“The progress is better than most analysts’ expectations as some thought it would take at least five months for HTC to sell 1 million HTC Magic phones,” said Lu Chia-lin (呂家霖), an analyst with Macquarie Research.

Giving a brief outlook about the company’s business in the second half of the year, Chou said sales in the US would be strong as it has formed stronger partnerships in the US.

Lu expects HTC revenues to grow 15 percent next quarter, from NT$39 billion (US$1.2 billion) estimated for the second quarter, as the smartphone maker has won new orders from US customers, including the US’ biggest telecom operator, AT&T Inc, as well as Sprint and T-Mobile USA Inc.

Starting next month, HTC is expected to supply a new Android-based phone to T-Mobile, which introduced its first Android mobile phone, G1, made by HTC, last year.

T-Mobile is set to give details of a new Android-based phone on June 24, Bloomberg news wire reported yesterday.

HTC and Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) launched the HTC Magic in Taiwan yesterday, making Chunghwa Telecom the first local phone company to sell Android phones.

HTC Magic will be available on Monday for a price ranging from free to NT$9,300 per unit when bundled with Chunghwa Telecom’s services with fees ranging from NT$649 to NT$2,549 per month.

Separately, Chunghwa Telecom said it planned to purchase 2 million mobile phones this year for new subscribers, or for existing customers to replace old phones, down nearly 10 percent from an original estimate of 2.2 million units.

HTC shares rose 0.36 percent to NT$416.5 yesterday, outperforming the benchmark TAIEX, which lost 0.83 percent.