HTC was believed to have withdrawn from the smartphone market after it stopped business in a few countries. The fact that the company didn’t launch a new smartphone since quite some time and the true flagship from the brand was last launched on 2018.
Amid reports of HTC shutting down smartphone business because of declining revenue, the company kept insisting that is wasn’t dead. Well, it turns out to be true. HTC CEO Yves Maitre has revealed in an interview that the company is planning to launch a new 5G smartphone this year.
Yves Maitre believes that the year 2020 has may opportunities in the Taiwan market, especially in 5G and virtual visual content driven by 5G connected applications. Thus, the company plans to invest aggressively in these two fields and will also launch the first HTC 5G-connected phone.
However, there’s no more information available about the upcoming 5G smartphone from the company, not even the timeline for its launch. It remains to be seen if the device in question is a flagship smartphone or a mid-range one.
If the HTC 5G smartphone is a flagship offering, it could come powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC, just like most other flagship phones launching this year. If the device is a mid-range offering, we expect it to be powered by Snapdragon 765 chipset or MediaTek Dimensity SoC.
HTC took exit from the Indian smartphone market in 2018 with less than one percent market share. Last year, it was reported that the company could re-enter the Indian market by selling its smartphones through Inone International distribution network. For those who are unaware, Inone Technology holds the license for HTC in India.
Last year, in August, Indian smartphone maker Lava had launched the HTC Wildfire X smartphone in two variants — 3 GB RAM and 4 GB RAM, costing ₹9,999 and ₹12,999 respectively.