Strapped to Android, HTC Takes a Dizzying Ride to the Top
Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC is on a tear. This year alone, the company has released five Android handsets. Its next phone, the HTC Nexus One, aka the Googlephone, is among the most anticipated devices of 2010.
Context & Ripple Effects
HTC ends 2009 having shipped five Android handsets in a single year — a cadence no other manufacturer matched — with the Google-dominated handset landscape CrunchGear mapped in November framing exactly how that happened: the OS is Google's, and HTC's job is to build for it. The payoff arrives next month as the Nexus One, the so-called Googlephone built by HTC, which TechCrunch's December hype cycle already compared to an iPhone on beautifying steroids.
The strategic tension is visible in the company's own positioning: HTC's rise is explicitly described as strapped to Android, meaning its momentum and its dependence on Google's platform are the same fact. Whether the Nexus One cements HTC as Android's flagship builder or makes it a contract manufacturer for Google's own ambitions is the open question heading into 2010.
First-order effects
- HTC enters 2010 with the most anticipated Android device of the year, converting a high-volume 2009 release schedule into brand leverage against Apple and rival Android builders.
Second-order effects
- By building Google's own branded phone, HTC strengthens the very platform owner whose hardware ambitions could commoditize every other Android maker — including HTC's own differentiated devices.
Third-order effects
- If handset makers keep competing on volume inside an ecosystem they don't own, the industry splits into platform owners capturing the value and hardware vendors racing each other to the bottom on specs and price.
The trend: Smartphone value is consolidating around platform owners like Google and Apple, with hardware manufacturers like HTC growing fast precisely because they have surrendered differentiation at the OS layer.