Majority of UK and Irish handsets will soon be smartphones – HTC


13 Oct 2010

HTC’s executive director for the UK and Ireland Jon French talked about the company’s work with Windows Phone 7 and the future of smartphone market in both countries.

French spoke about the potential of smartphone growth within the UK and Ireland, saying both countries represented “two of the most advanced markets” in Western Europe.

“The market of the smartphone is growing so fast and it won’t be very long until the vast majority of handsets, certainly in UK and Irish markets, will be smartphones,” said French.

He added that, in light of this, HTC wanted to maintain a strong position in this field.

On the launch on Windows Phone 7, HTC showed the HD7, which will run on the platform and will be coming to Ireland on 21 October.

The phone features numerous multimedia capabilities, such as SRS surround sound, HD (720p) video capturing abilities, a 4.3-inch screen and a kickstand to prop it up while watching movies.

HTC’s impressions from London

French spoke about the impression they got from Microsoft’s London launch of the new mobile OS.

Microsoft were really quite humble, saying that ‘we know that 6.5 and previous iterations weren’t the best, so we’ve gone back to the drawing board,’” said French, noting that’s why they liked it.

He added it looks as though Microsoft has learned a few lessons in its road to designing the OS.

French said HTC believes Windows Phone 7 is a “really good platform”. He said it offers something different to Android although acknowledged Android has its benefits, too.

One of the key differences between Microsoft’s platform and Google’s Android is that the Windows Phone 7 interface appears to be mostly undifferentiated between every handset.

“Microsoft – and really, understandably so – have launched a brand new platform,” said French.

“They want uniformity in that UI. All they’ve done is that they said to us that basically, [we] can have a hub, and in that hub, that’s [ours] to do with as [we] please.”

The HTC Hub will provide exclusive apps and services, including a new weather and stock app and a new photo-enhancing app.

“We can still manage to get across the HTC look and feel and the things that people love about our devices, but just in a slightly different delivery,” he added.

HTC’s CEO Peter Chou has said they will focus equally on both Windows Phone 7 and Android and “will let the market decide the outcome.”