HTC Has Surprise Hit With Touch
By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
October 3, 2007, 12:43 PM
HTC said this week that it had shipped some 800,000 Touch phones since it first went on sale on July 22, almost a month later than the iPhone.
Like the initial reports of the iPhone's one million phones "sold," it is unclear as of yet whether this was shipped to the retail channel or directly to the consumer. A request for clarification from HTC had not been returned as of press time.
Apple sold some one million iPhones to the retail channel in 74 days after its launch. Although activation numbers are not yet available, analysts expect the company to end it's first quarter of sales with anywhere between 900,000 to 1.1 million devices in consumer's hands.
The Touch is currently available in Europe and Asia, with plans to bring it to the US in November. On the other hand, the iPhone is currently only available in the US through AT&T.
"800,000 isn't bad for a company with no brand name, and indicates that higher-end devices are beginning to gain the attention of buyers," James Quintana Pearce wrote for MocoNews on Monday. "I think the hype around the iPhone had a lot to do with generating that interest, rather than Apple getting lucky and releasing the iPhone at the right time."
HTC is also ready to launch the second model in the Touch lineup, called the Dual. The device acts much like the original model, yet has a slider to reveal a keypad underneath.
The phone will first be sold through Orange in the UK, France, Romania, and Poland beginning in October.
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