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HTC's Hot-seller Evo 4G to Land in Japan in April

2011/03/10 | By Steve Chuang

Taipei, March 10, 2011 (CENS)--High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC)'s Evo 4G smartphone is going to land in Japan in early April, as the Taiwanese firm has joined hands with Japan's telecom company KDDI to promote hot-selling WiMAX (Worldwide interoperability for Microwave Access) handset in the country.

A few days ago, Fred Liu, president of HTC's engineering department, and Takashi Tanaka, KDDI's president, jointly introduced HTC Evo 4G in Japan, which is installed with Google's Android operating system, and built wit a 4.3-inch wide touchscreen and an 8-megapixel camera. Featuring better coverage efficiency than competing models, the WiMAX smartphone is regarded as HDDI's ace in the hole in the race for the No.1 spot in Japan's market for mobile broadband services.

The 4G-service competition among telecom companies in Japan has been increasingly intense lately, especially when the largest one DoCoMo has launched its LTE (long-term evolution)-based services since December, 2010. Having been engaged in promotion of WiMAX since 2009, KDDI, Japan's second-largest telecom service provider with the registered user number of over 32.54 million as of the end of this January, has thus decided to join forces with HTC to keep betting on the 4G technology, noted market observers.

Launching the world's first WiMAX phone in 2008 to confirm its leading position in the segment in the world, HTC is expected to give concrete aid to KDDI in the competition landscape, indicated market observers. The world-caliber smartphone developer this year aims to achieve sales of 54 million units, with higher-end 4G models to account for a 10-20% share.

In addition to the said Evo 4G, the firm has also launched several 4G models in cooperation with other telecom companies in overseas markets, including HTC Evo Shift 4G with Sprint, HTC ThunderBolt with Verizon and HTC Inspire 4G with AT&T, to secure profit drives this year.

Smartphone Shipments and Revenue by HTC

 

2010

2011
(estimated)

Q2

Q3

Q4

Q1

Q2

Shipment

5.4 million units

6.8 million units

9.13 million units

8.5 million units

110 million units

Sales Revenue

NT$60.5 bn.

NT$75.8 bn.

NT$104 bn.

NT$94 bn.

NT$115 bn.

Gross Profit Rate

29.5%

30.2%

30.0%

30.0%

29.0%

Source: HTC, foreign institutional investors