HTC's president shares some info on the company's business

Jan 25, 2017 19:59 GMT  ·  By

When Samsung and Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 835 chipset late last year, they said that this particular processor would be at the heart of almost all flagship smartphones that would be introduced in 2017.

Fast forward a few months and HTC launches the first flagship of 2017, the U Ultra, a smartphone powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 821, not the next-generation Snapdragon 835.

At the time of the launch, many blamed HTC for not waiting until the Snapdragon 835 chipset would become available, but they didn't know something very important: Samsung claimed exclusivity over the chip until the Galaxy S8 will be launched on the market.

Basically, no other flagship announced before April would include Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 processor. We have confirmed that the LG G6 will pack the same Snapdragon 821 CPU since it will be unveiled in late February at Mobile World Congress.

Moreover, in an interview with Tbreak, HTC's president Chialin Chang confirmed what we only assumed a few days ago: no flagship introduced at MWC will pack the Snapdragon 835 CPU, unless it will be launched on the market after April 21.

Explaining why HTC has decided to launch the U Ultra in January instead of waiting for MWC 2017, Chang said:

When we will look back, it will be clear why HTC introduced [these new phones.] We want to have a couple of months of leadership before the next flagship CPU comes. But that will be in another period of time- not at MWC. Not for us or any other player. I can tell you that for sure. When the new CPU comes, HTC will have another flagship.”

HTC U Ultra
HTC U Ultra

On the bright side, HTC's president stated that as soon as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 becomes widely available, his company will be among the first to introduce a new flasgship. However, that will most certainly not happen until the second half of the year.

HTC will have to take into consideration many factors when launching their second flagship since Samsung is readying its Galaxy Note 8, while Apple has a couple of iPhones to unleash on the market as well.

Every time there is a brand new CPU with power that we can leverage, we're always at the forefront doing that. Some people are talking about the timing [of our release] but timing was determined 9 months ago.

This is the best CPU out there. When the next flagship CPU comes, HTC will be one of the very first tier doing that,” added Chang.

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HTC U Ultra
HTC U Ultra
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