HTC Confirms 4 New Smartphones Under Own Brand In China

Previous HTC phones sold in China have been under the name of HTC partner Dopod, but HTC smartphones will now carry its own name -- part of a stronger push by HTC to conquer the world's most rapidly growing smartphone market.

According to HTC, it has also entered into new partnerships with China Mobile -- the country's largest mobile carrier, with about 554 million subscribers -- and China's largest electronics distributor, Gome Electrical Appliances Holding.

Three of the new phones -- HTC Tianyi, HTC Desire and HTC Wildfire -- will run Google Android for a mobile OS, while the fourth, HTC Tianxi, will use Microsoft's Windows Mobile. Two of the phones, the Tianxi and Tianyi, will rely on Time-Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TC-SCDMA), a 3G technology used in China. All four will include HTC Sense, the smartphone maker's customizeable user interface.

According to HTC, the phones will be available by October. It did not confirm pricing and other details in Tuesday's announcement.

As in the U.S., HTC will continue to go head-to-head with Apple and other smartphone makers in China, where the iPhone 3GS has been on sale since last fall but the iPhone 4 has yet to be confirmed.

HTC sold 11.7 million phones worldwide in 2009. It's global profile has steadily risen --especially in the United States -- on stylish phones running Google's Android, some of which are among CRN's list of the year's 10 coolest smartphones so far.

"The pace of mobile innovation globally is moving an at extraordinary rate, and we are excited to be bringing many of our most innovative phones to China, the largest and most sophisticated mobile market in the world," said Peter Chou, HTC's CEO, in a statement. "HTC was founded with a vision for mobile convergence and a passion for innovation that has established us as a globally recognized mobile leader."