HTC forecasts 50 percent rise in US sales

HTC expects its total sales in the US to increase by at least 50% in 2009, on the back of the release of its Google Android handsets.

Jason Mackenzie, vice president for HTC America recently told Reuters that he expects “to grow US volume by at least 50 percent from 2008 to 2009”. This would indicate sales of 6 million handsets in 2009.

Internationally he said that he expects to see a 20 percent rise in global sales over the time period. Despite negative factors such as the recession, the recently released iPhone 3GS and Research in Motion’s (RIM) strong presence in the US Mackenzie told Reuters that he still expects to boost sales.

“Competitively we feel very good,” Mackenzie said.

HTC, which also makes devices such as the HTC Diamond for the Windows Mobile Platform, was the first handset manufacturer to debut the long awaited Android operating system.

The HTC Magic was first debuted earlier this year at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and became commercially available in Europe in April. The HTC Dream, also known as the G1 phone was released in late 2008.

Locally, both were made available exclusively to MTN (HTC Dream) and Vodacom (HTC Magic) in May 2009.

Additionally HTC this week announced the release of the HTC Hero, the next instalment in the manufacturer’s Android range. It will become available internationally from July onwards.

Although some might believe that this expected growth, if achieved, would be directly attributed to the release of these three Android handsets, Mackenzie said that he felt differently, citing that “”We’ll do great business with both platforms,”.

There is no doubt that HTC will experience some stiff competition from both Apple and RIM, manufacturer of Blackberry handsets in 2009. Last week Apple announced that it had sold 1 million iPhone 3GS handsets in only three days while RIM laid claim to three of the top five spots in terms of smartphone sales in the US in the first quarter of 2009.

Despite the tough opposition HTC are in a good position to achieve greater market share both in the US and globally with the Android platform rapidly taking off amongst consumers.