HTC

HTC Corporation (Chinese: 宏達國際電子股份有限公司; pinyin: Hóngdá Guójì Diànzǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī), or High Tech Computer Corporation (abbreviated and trading as HTC), is a Taiwanese consumer electronics corporation headquartered in Taoyuan District, Taoyuan, Taiwan. Founded in 1997, HTC began as an original design manufacturer and original equipment manufacturer that designed and manufactured laptop computers. After initially making smartphones based mostly on Windows Mobile, HTC became one of 34 cofounding members of the Open Handset Alliance, a group of handset manufacturers and mobile network operators dedicated to the development of the Android operating system. The HTC Dream (marketed by T-Mobile in many countries as the T-Mobile G1) was the first phone on the market to run Android. Although initially successful as a smartphone vendor as it became the largest smartphone vendor in the U.S. in Q3 2011, competition from Samsung and Apple, among others, diluted its market share, which dropped to just 7.2% by April 2015, and the company has experienced consecutive net losses. In 2016, HTC began to diversify its business beyond smartphones and has partnered with Valve to produce a virtual reality platform known as HTC Vive. After having collaborated with Google on its Google Pixel, HTC sold roughly half of its design and research talent, as well as non-exclusive rights to smartphone-related intellectual property, to Google in 2017 for US$1.1 billion.