At one point, the Taiwan-based HTC was one of the world’s biggest mobile phone manufacturers. It has seen its fortunes fall drastically from the position of being the number one smartphone brand in Australia, and capturing a global market share of 24 per cent of the smartphone market, to today being a brand that struggles to even hold onto 0.1 per cent of the worldwide smartphone market.
As ChannelNews reported last year, HTC’s phone business went backwards in Australia due in part to poor international management and marketing that was seen as being Asia centric.
The business was then acquired in 2017 by Google for U$1.8 billion with more than 2,000 engineers from HTC joining Google who also got a non-exclusive license to HTC’s intellectual property.
Last year, HTC began what we assume were the first steps towards inching its way back into the spotlight. It announced the HTC U23 Pro, which sits in the affordable premium sub-A$1,000 smartphone market with brands such as Motorola, Nokia, and Oppo happily sit.
Now, it seems ready to debut a successor that will push its case even further. The HTC U24 Pro has been listed in the Google Play Console, a move which usually indicates an official launch is imminent within the coming weeks. It has already been certified by the Bluetooth SIG.
GSM Arena claims that the HTC U24 Pro will be powered by the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 SoC, and will have at least one variant with 12GB of RAM. Its screen will have 1080×2436 resolution, with 480ppi pixel density and it will run Android 14 from the outset.
It’s unclear yet as to the retailers in Australia that will stock the new smartphones and support a comeback of the brand, but the likes of JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman already offer non-smartphone products from HTC including its VR headset, and so it might be only a matter of time before the HTC smartphones make its way onto its retail platforms too.
