Local smart phone firm HTC takes global stage

“Quietly Brilliant” is the motto adorning HTC's advertisements — and quietly, brilliantly it has managed to grow and grow, until recently it stunned the industry by becoming as big as Nokia.

“Today HTC is synonymous with smart phones,” said Wang Ying-Yu, a research manager at Industrial Technology Research Institute, a think-tank in the city of Hsinchu in northern Taiwan.

“It has been more successful than any other company in Taiwan at pulling off the difficult task of building a brand,” he said.

HTC's market value is now around US$33 billion, about the same level as Nokia and surpassing Blackberry maker Research In Motion's (RIM's) US$28 billion, according to analysts.

HTC has also set several records in Taiwan, and was listed as the most profitable company last year, while co-founder and chairwoman Cher Wang is currently the island's richest person.

Like many Taiwanese firms, HTC started as a contract manufacturer for major foreign brands such as Microsoft and only began developing its own brand of handsets in 2006.

The theory sounds nice — learn the ropes, then launch your own product — but so far only a handful of elite Taiwan companies such as computer maker Acer have managed to get it right.

“Others who tried ended up hurting themselves and typically saw their shares fall by half,” Wang said.

Not HTC. It is now the world's fifth largest smart phone maker by shipment after Nokia, Apple, RIM and Samsung, and it can challenge Apple's market share in Europe and Asia, analysts said.

Momentum is further boosted by first quarter results, which saw its unaudited net profit nearly triple from the same period last year to NT$$14.83 billion (US$510 million) while revenue surged 174 percent to NT$104.16 billion.

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