HTC Co-Founder Expects 40% Of Mobile Phones To Be Smartphones In 2013

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Unless you’re a total Apple nutjob, it’s been evident for a while that HTC is currently producing the best smartphones out there. The Taiwanese company has a strong position in the market and expects that market to grow in the next three years. They’re also well placed for the “4G Generation” of devices.

HTC Co-founder and chairperson Char Wang said at a mobile phone forum in Taipei  that she expects that smartphones will make up 40% of the mobile phone market in 2013. If you look at things we’ve seen, like Texas Instruments and Ericsson coming out with platforms for cheap sub-$100 Android phones – it’s definitely a possibility.

It’s been evident that a market pioneered by business users using BlackBerry and Palm devices has now evolved into a consumer-centric App Store-filled market dominated by Android devices and the iPhone. Although Samsung, Nokia and Motorola all want to get rid of the cheap $50 dumbphones featurephones they sell – a lot of people aren’t willing to spend over $100 for a new mobile phone, or they can’t be bothered to figure out how to use such a device.

As for HTC, they feel comfortable in their market position. They invested heavily in 4G technologies, both WiMax and LTE. While many (myself included) called WiMax dead just four days ago, the new HTC EVO 4G, running on Sprint’s WiMax 4G network has gotten some new interest in WiMax. At any rate, HTC has invested engineering into both WiMax and LTE.

HTC will be having a press conference on April 2nd, where they will be unveiling the HTC Smart, a new phone that will use Qulacomm’s Brew development platform.