Last year, HTC halted its operations in India because of the company’s financial struggles as well as the company’s failure to establish a strong presence in one of the world’s largest market. While it has not launched a new smartphone since quite some time, HTC isn’t done with India yet.
According to the latest reports, the Taiwanese company is in talks with several India-based smartphone companies in order to license its brand. The company wants to license its brand name to other smartphone manufacturers in India for smartphones, tablets, and mobile accessories.
The report from Economic Times, which cites senior industry executives, reveals that HTC is currently in talks with Micromax, Lava, and Karbonn to license its brand. It also adds that there’s a possibility that Micromax and Lava will team up to jointly bid for the HTC brand license.
In response to this development, HTC told The Economic Times that it’s looking for strategic options for India and “will have more to announce at a later date.”
While licensing the brand name isn’t a sure-shot way to regain the relevance in the Indian market, the deal could be helpful for both — HTC and the bid-winner. While the Taiwan-based will get a royalty for every product with brand licensing, the bid-winning company will have a brand name with global appeal.
Currently, the Indian smartphone market is being dominated by Xiaomi, Samsung, Vivo, and Oppo which accounts for over 64 percent of the country’s mobile market. On the other hand, Micromax has a market share of just 5 percent while Lava and Karbonn are in the “others” category with marginal market share.
