Android Phones Fuel HTC Growth; More Planned for 2011

Looks like 2011 is shaping up to be the year of Android for electronics manufacturer HTC.
In a conference call Friday morning, the company reported a massive 93 percent increase in 2010 revenue over 2009, as first reported by PC World. 2010 sales weighed in at a respectable 24.67 million units, up 111 percent from 2009.
“The year 2010 was a breakthrough year,” CEO Peter Chou said in an earnings call Friday. “Going from a company of no scale to one of scale, that process was faster than I expected. Last year was the year that smartphones exploded.”
Android is a major force behind the company’s acceleration.
HTC expects to see $3.2 billion in revenues and 8.5 million units shipped in the first quarter of 2011. Most of that will be led by the company’s big push into smartphones running Google’s mobile operating system.
HTC plans to release a host of 4G Android phones in 2011, including the previously announced Thunderbolt, the Inspire and the Evo Shift.
Android, which became commercially available only in 2008, has grown quickly to become the fastest-growing smartphone operating system, with sales outpacing those of Apple’s iPhone by the middle of 2010. HTC was one of the first companies to embrace Android, a bet that paid off handsomely in 2009 — and appears poised to continue doing so two years later. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, much of the buzz was around Android-based tablets and high-end smartphones from manufacturers like Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG.
We may see even more Android-running HTC handsets released than those already announced, if leaked photos from PocketNow are to be believed. Multiple pictures of unlabeled HTC phones are currently circulating the blogopshere, including one that looks similar to the company’s Desire HD model. Other pictures include a large-screen HTC Oboe lookalike, a phone currently released in China.
Reports of an HTC tablet release circulated Thursday, rumored to launch some time in March. Two more HTC tablets are rumored to follow within the first half of 2011. The first tablet, reportedly named the “Flyer” by DigiTimes, is said to launch running Android version 2.3 (Gingerbread), but will be able to upgrade to the much anticipated version 3.0, or Honeycomb.
Currently the fourth biggest smartphone maker in the world, HTC has focused on manufacturing smartphones in particular — compared to that of relatively inexpensive feature phones — since being founded in 1997. Although HTC’s highly anticipated Google-branded Nexus One left a bad taste in the mouths of many customers, the company has continued to perform well. Total 2010 revenues amounted to $9.57 billion.

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