HTC has come a long way in the past few years. High Tech Company has been building and selling smartphones roughly as long as Nokia and RIM, but its early and focused embrace of Android has helped it grow to have a market value 30 times what it was five years ago, reports All Things D. Today, HTC’s market cap (the price of its shares multiplied by the number of shares) is $33.9 billion, edging out Nokia’s $32.8 billion and RIM’s $28.5 billion.
Unlike many of its competitors, HTC has focused a lot of its efforts on design and user experience. Unlike many Android devices, HTC phones manage to stand out due to some unique hardware and software design decisions. HTC is also big on relationships and new trends, creating unique devices (4G, 3D, etc) and branding for carriers like Sprint and embracing Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform as well.
Goldman Sachs analyst Robert Chen expects HTC to ship 200 million smartphones and 30 million tablets worldwide each year for the next three to five years. Crazy? Yeah. Chen explains: “This reflects its superior position, which allows [HTC] to benefit from the broadband convergence trend, significant growth potential in emerging markets, as well as its leading product roadmap and branding campaign that continue to increase its preference among global consumers.”
