
After closing its operations last year, Taiwanese smartphone brand HTC is making a comeback to the Indian market. According to PTI, the company hopes to launch a new range of smartphones in August.
In its second innings, HTC plans to sell its phones through Inone Technology in the country. The company, which is headquartered in Shenzhen, essentially holds branding rights to use the HTC brand name in India.
HTC, like many other smartphone players, struggled to expand its business quickly as the market was changing around. A lot of factors contributed to the decline of HTC in India, including the rise of Chinese smartphone players, delay in launching phones on e-commerce platforms and poor management decisions at a higher level. Just last year, its South Asia head and in-charge of India business Faisal Siddiqui resigned.
If HTC was going through troubled times in India, the situation was even worse in international markets. In 2017, Google signed a $1 billion deal with HTC to acquire its talent along with a non-exclusive license for its intellectual property. Since then HTC is less and less visible in the smartphone market. Instead, the company now focuses more on consumer VR with its Vive headsets.
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HTC hasn’t officially confirmed its re-entry in India yet. However, the Taiwanese company needs more than a solid business plan to compete with the likes of Xiaomi, Samsung and Oppo.
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