HTC Makes 80% of WM Phones on the Market?

yes its def a bad thing. Look at the Diamond/Pro 2. HTC has become complacent knowing the can make money off of people and people will continue to buy their products. All the 2nd series offers is a new Touchflo (merely software) and a bigger screen. Same crummy Qualcomm processor (likely same Video driver problems), same RAM, same ROM, same 3.2mp camera on the Pro2. Yes the Diamond2 gets 5mp which is decently nice to see.

But honestly whats upgraded besides the screen and looks? Other manufacturers like toshiba and Samsung are stepping up to the plate offering higher spec devices with better resolution capture and playback in HD, 1ghz processors, etc. Theres no reason for a mid-late 2009 phone to have the same specs as last years model with a larger screen.

But HTC controls the WM market and knows people will continue to buy their products no matter what they do.

I don't remember who, but someone else noticed this before Apple Insider did. I want to say it was either Crunch Gear or CNET.

its called competition, if the other companies cant hang thats not htc's fault. look at how jordan dominated basketball for so long, is it his fault he was so much more superieor than everyone else playing at that time? absolutley not. sounds like the other companies better step their games up. just my opinion of course

I think the same argument can be applied to Apple and BlackBerry and Nokia/Symbian. Out of these only Symbian & WM appear on non-majority OEM devices.

Just because HTC is at the helm of the SELLS of WM devices, I wouldn't necessarily call them a near-monopoly. Samsung, LG, Pantech, Asus, Motorola, Palm (until recently) and others do manufacture WM devices, they just don't sell for what whatever reason. HTC does OEM the X1 and new Treo's but at the same time, they also don't set the sell price on those.

The market does have a crowd although it's hard to see. I think the competition is there, it's just nobody is really trying to be competitive.

HTC makes 100% of Android phones. How about that for a headline!

Apple makes 100% of iPhones.

Pointless this, isn't it?

@Chris R, regarding Apple, it is a proprietary OS, so of course that's obvious (and Apple _does not_ make the iPhone, they just designed it). Same with RIM. They simply don't allow 3rd parties to make devices with their OS. Android is brand new and companies like Samsung, Motorola and others are poised to enter that one as well. The point here is that WM is a very open OS where anyone can license it--yet we ended up with 80% of that market in the hands of one company. It doesn't speak to the diversity that is expected of the Microsoft system--whether that is bad or good is up for debate.

In my opinion HTC makes the best Windows Mobile phones - just like the Xperia!

I dont think other companies are like up to their standards!

I noticed this a loong time ago, I see this as pointing out the obvious.

And I totally agree with the first post, all the devices are the same, just different cosmetics for the most part. wmexperts kind of harshed on the upcoming Toshiba, but when I looked at it I saw something fresh for WinMob.

I don't necessarily think it's great, but I don't see it as bad. Remember, even though 50M sounds big, it's still quite small compared to the entire mobile device market. HTC having a near-monopoly means that the WM market share has a very strong player among other heavyweights (Apple, Nokia); otherwise you'd be talking about dozens of smaller, lesser-known companies that each have significantly less brand power and are less capable of pushing their WM handsets out the door.

Many new devices at MWC look great (Toshiba, Garmin/ASUS, Gigabyte, etc), and if the WM market share grows, then I think the added competition will be a boon to the WM market. But remember, HTC has fought hard to establish a name for itself, and it has done a good job of making WM look good -- that's a good thing for us, in light of iPhone, Android, etc. If that weren't the case, there's a chance that few companies would currently want to continue developing with WM.

Basically, the fact that HTC has been able to do so well for itself is reason enough for other companies to perceive WM as a viable platform.

if htc were not creating all their devices, i doubt the winmo would still exist.

Newsflash!!! Apple makes 100% of apple software phones. Yet you don't see many complaining about that, despite Apple's monopolistic practices. I guess the point is, who cares? Just as long as we are given options to the latest cell phone tech.

HTC while not always getting their drivers to work, and missing little things like GPS lag, has done more for WinMo that Microsoft has. Am I worried that they have little competition for the WinMo platform? Not at all. We need a few good companies with close ties to MS to further the platform, not a whole bunch with no clear leader to dillute it further.

The competition is the Andriods/Apples/RIMs/Pres... If they weren't such major players, then HTC wouldn't have reason to do their best.

In September 2006 it was reported that HTC was ODM, CM or end brander for 80% of the all Windows Mobile.

"HTC is widely considered to be the ODM source of some 80 percent of the world's Windows Mobile smartphones and PDA-phones. The company reported in May 2006 that its total revenues for April 2006 reached NT$7,596 million (approx. US$237 million), up 48.59 percent year-over-year, and that its total 2006 year-to-date revenues were NT$31,608 million (approx. US$986 million), up 72.14 percent over the same period of 2005.
HTC announced in June [2006]that it was acquiring popular Asian phone brand, Dopod. Later that month, the company began selling self-branded devices for the first time."
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS9356639918.html

@Intomed , if you don't care then _don't_ post on the topic ;-) But once again, the Apple/iPhone business model is 100% the _opposite_ of Microsoft's so how can you compare them? Apple does not license their OS, so in my opinion, your point is completely moot and irrelevant. (And obviously people do care or they would not be writing intelligent responses to the question posed)

Number will change since LG announced at MWC that it'll produce 50 (!) WM phones through 2012! Scrumptious.