HTC Touch to Take On iPhone in the U.S.

Taiwan’s HTC has announced it plans to go head-to-head with Apple’s forthcoming iPhone in the U.S. market by launching its HTC Touch smartphone by the end of the year. HTC has already launched the touchscreen-based phone in the UK, and had previously announced plans to launch the unit in Asia and Europe.

The Apple iPhone is scheduled to go on sale in the U.S. in just over two weeks.

The HTC Touch runs Windows Mobile 6—meaning it offers media playback, email, PIM, Web browsing, and the capability to access MS Office documentsmdash;and offers a 2.8-inch LCD touchscreen, microSDstorage, and a 2 megapixel camera. The phone sports both 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless networking, plus the capability to access GSM/GPRS/EDGE mobile broadband networks. No carrier partnerships have been announced.

HTC started out building phones and devices for other companies (like NTT DoCoMo and Dell) as an original design manufacturer (ODM), and has been quickly shifting to marketing devices under its own name. HTC says non-ODM phones now account for 70 percent of the company’s sales.