HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s No. 5 smartphone brand, is set to ride its solid shipment momentum into next year by unseating Research in Motion Ltd (RIM), the maker of the BlackBerry, to become the No. 4 brand, a market researcher said.
With shipments continuing to break records and a variety of models in the pipeline, HTC has a good chance of moving up a notch to the No. 4 spot next year, -according to a report released last week by the Market Intelligence Center (MIC) of the government-backed Institute for Information Industry (資策會).
Another driving force for HTC is that the Android operating system (OS) will see its market share expand to 40 percent next year, up 2 percentage points from this year, it said.
The iOS operating system, used exclusively by Apple Inc’s products, will see its share expand by 1 percentage point to 19 percent next year, according to MIC’s estimates.
The Windows Phone OS, from Microsoft Corp, will seize a 17 percent market share next year, thanks to Nokia Corp pledging full support to the OS after recently forming an alliance with Microsoft.
HTC will benefit from the dominance of Android and the rise of Windows Phone OS, because it is the world’s largest maker of smartphones running on both operating systems, the Taipei-based research arm said.
HTC’s revenue nearly doubled to a record NT$278.8 billion (US$9.7 billion) last year, from NT$144.5 billion in 2009. Net profit expanded 75 percent to NT$39.5 billion.
Smartphone shipments more than doubled to 24.6 million units from 11.7 million in 2009.
In the first quarter, HTC shipped 9.7 million smartphones — a figure that comes near to 40 percent of last year’s total shipments.
Analysts have projected that HTC’s shipments could set another record this year — at least 50 million.
Canada’s RIM last month reported profits of US$695 million on revenue of US$4.9 billion for its first fiscal quarter, versus US$934 million in profits a year ago. Revenue rose 16 percent from US$4.24 billion in the same period last year.
RIM shipped 13.2 million smartphones during the quarter, below the 13.5 million it gave during revised guidance at the end of April.
RIM, which is losing out to iPhones and Android-based smartphones, also said it would begin a “cost optimization program” that will include layoffs during the -second quarter.
Meanwhile, the MIC report forecast that the Taiwanese telecommunications industry — which includes sectors for feature phones, smartphones and related component manufacturing — will expand 30 percent year-on-year to NT$1.7 trillion in production output this year.
HTC shipments fueled the industry’s growth in the first half of the year, with next-generation iPhones expected to boost the industry in the second half.
Taiwanese makers supply components and assemble iPhones for Apple.
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