14 DAY TRIAL // Taiwan-based mobile phone maker HTC Corporation is steadily picking up pace on the smartphone market. The company has become popular around the world courtesy of its Windows Mobile and Android-based handsets, and the latest reports show that it started to gain more market share, in the detriment of rivals like Motorola or Research In Motion.
Piper Jaffray analyst T. Michael Walkley has stated in a recent research note that HTC has begun to get market share from its rivals due to its wide range of devices powered by Google's Android operating system. Moreover, it seems the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor that powers these handsets is another important factor contributing to HTC's success.
“Our April and early May checks indicated strong North America share gains for HTC with strong initial sales of the HTC Incredible at Verizon, combined with solid sales of the HTC Hero at Sprint and HTC HD2 and My Touch 3G at T-Mobile. We believe consumers overwhelmingly selected HTC based Android and Windows Mobile based devices due to its customizable UI, processing power with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 1 GHz processor and sleek designs,” says Mr. Walkley.
According to him, the BlackBerry solutions are most likely to start losing market share at carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. The fact that the Bold 9700 has seen a price increase to $199 at AT&T will also contribute to the market share loss registered by RIM's OS, Walkley notes, adding that Android devices should steal more market share at Verizon and T-Mobile too.
Mr. Walkley hasn't talked about HTC’s impact on Apple, yet he has revealed that the sales of the iPhone are maintaining momentum. Even so, HTC and its appealing Android-based devices are seen as a threat to Apple, and the recent legal actions the Cupertino-based company took against HTC prove exactly that. Motorola is expected to suffer from HTC's growth as well, though shortages registered by DROID Incredible kept Motorola's DROID on top of Verizon's sales.