Taiwan’s High Tech Computer (HTC) is the world’s fourth largest smart phone maker after Nokia, Apple and RIM. Founded in 1997, HTC grew its business as one of the leading providers of operator-branded devices. In June 2006, it launched smart phones under its own brand and quickly gained market share from other key players. It now aims to become one of the world’s top three smart phone makers by 2013. Little known to Indian consumers two years ago when it entered this market, the brand today has a strong presence in the Rs 10,000-plus category. The growth driver for the brand, says HTC Country Manager Ajay Sharma, has been its customer-centric focus. “People want phones that meet their individual needs and are easy to use. That’s what our devices are all about,” says Sharma as he discusses the company’s new brand positioning with Arunima Mishra.
HTC has recently repositioned the brand. Your tagline now reads “quietly brilliant” instead of the earlier “smart mobility”. Explain the new positioning.
HTC entered the smart phone market through partnerships with Microsoft and key mobile operators worldwide (it manufactured operator-branded devices). In June 2006, it rolled out devices under its own brand with the global positioning “smart mobility”. In 2009, the brand decided to move on to a new user interface (under the Android platform) which is all about the customer — we called it YOU. The YOU campaign was launched with the tagline “You don’t need to get a phone. You need a phone that gets you”. “Quietly brilliant” is the new brand positioning which has been created recently by FigTree, a London-based creative agency. The campaign uses the visual language of doodles to explain the quietly-brilliant features and benefits of the devices in a simple way. It echoes the design expertise of HTC.
The customer is the focus of the new positioning and it also stands for simplicity and a number of surprises. It turns down the myth that smart phones are difficult to use. We have kept the interface very simple. You can easily customise the phone and make the whole experience interesting. Also, it is about doing things quietly. We are not saying we’re giving you this function or that tool — play with the device and you’ll discover hidden surprises. There are little things that the user experiences after using the device. For instance, if you get a call while you are in a meeting, all you need to do is flip the phone and it will automatically turn silent.
Our interface called Sense can generate everything about a person at one place. For instance, when you are talking to a person, you will get to see his emails, SMSes, missed calls and even Facebook updates on the screen. It’s all so simple — you don’t need to go to the Facebook site to check if someone has written a post on your wall. So, YOU is all about the user.
How do you read the customer’s mind?
We do a lot of things. We have an e-Club for existing customers. You log on to the website and give your feedback. We also try to talk to the customer through our campaigns. Then we have started opening HTC care centres across the country where we constantly receive customer feedback. Currently, there are four authorised care centres in Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Pune. There is one more coming up in Mumbai.
What benefits does HTC’s e-Club offer to its customers?
You can download upgrades on the operating system. You get updates on our new launches. We send out customers questionnaires on their overall experience with our phones, features that they would like to see and so on. Our service team stays in touch with them over emails. We have about 100,000 customers on the website — that’s a decent number. But there are also many who don’t register on the site.
How do you see competition from other smart phone makers? RIM’s Blackberry and Apple’s iPhone are quite popular….
HTC touches a much wider audience with devices based on two operating systems — Microsoft Windows and Google’s Android. Our touch points are much higher. A customer with a budget of Rs 10,000 will not go for a Rs 30,000 device. We have a market there. I am not just selling a business device but also a customer device. A customer for an Android-based device will not be the customer for a Windows device. The constant addition of innovation is something that competition has not yet been able to catch up with. While we offer more than what the user needs and what the industry offers, we don’t talk much about the hardware part. Our emphasis is on the user interface.
The best way to compare smart phones would be to take three handsets in the market and reach a conclusion. What do you expect in a smart phone? It should be easy to operate, the touch screen should never hang and so on. I leave it to the customer to have the final word. However, there are many who expect our phones to cost less — below Rs 10,000. We are talking to independent agencies to find out what non-HTC customers think about our phones.
How are HTC smart phones placed when it comes to price?
We have devices ranging between Rs 10,000 and Rs 35,000. We still don’t touch the below-Rs 10,000 audience. We don’t want to compromise on quality.
How many stores in the country sell your phones? What are the margins like for your dealers?
HTC has two national distributors in India — Jena Marketing and Brightpoint. The company’s points of sales are touching around 3,500 outlets. Almost 90 per cent of the distribution happens across 10 cities. The Mobile Store may be selling it through its various outlets. The margin that the local dealer would like to keep is solely his decision. However, it is the market forces that decide the price. In any industry, it’s impossible to determine what the end price should be.
