HTC Plans to Lead Smartphone Mkt Within 2yrs

Taiwanese cell phone manufacturer High Technology Corp (HTC) expects to lead the Brazilian smartphone market within the next two years, local news agency Ag阯cia Estado reported the company's marketing director for Latin America, Allan Macintyre as saying.

HTC announced in October it had chosen Brazil as the first place outside Asia to start producing smartphones. HTC reached an agreement with local company Celestica to produce the handsets at Celestica's factory in Campinas, S鉶 Paulo state.

HTC specializes in smartphones based on the Windows Mobile operating system and by year-end the company expects to be producing handset models in Brazil.

To start up operations, HTC invested an initial US$10mn, according to the report. Local company Simm will be in charge of sales and distribution of HTC's phones, while technical and post-sales support will be offered by Grupo Picolli.

"In the first stage, 100% of production will be sold in the local market. However, in the short term, we will use Brazil as a base to export to the rest of Latin America," HTC's Latin America director Cesar Keller said, according to the report.

Keller also said that the Brazilian smartphone market is expected to grow "well above" the world annual average rate of 30% over the next years.

The firm's global sales for fiscal year 2006 were US$3.2bn.