A Former No-Name from Taiwan Builds a Global Brand

By Bruce Einhorn

The vodka and whiskey flowed freely in a Taipei exhibition hall the size of an airplane hangar on Oct. 7. A six-piece cover band entertained guests with Queen's We Will Rock You and Engelbert Humperdinck's Quando, Quando, Quando. The occasion: Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC was launching a line of handsets using Google's (GOOG) Android operating system. HTC, a brand virtually unknown in the U.S. two years ago, is the market leader in Android phones—the one segment of the market that's growing faster than Apple's (AAPL) iPhone. Before the music started, executives from wireless carriers and other partner companies took the stage to praise HTC's chief executive officer, Peter Chou. "The true inventor of the smartphone is Peter Chou and his team," said Yves Maitre, a senior vice-president at French operator Orange. "He is the one."

HTC's stock has jumped 94 percent this year, and with a market cap of 552 billion Taiwan dollars ($18 billion) the company is now the third-most-valuable Taiwanese technology company after chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor and contract manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn. HTC launched the first Android smartphone in 2008—the T-Mobile G1—and has a 39 percent share of that market globally. Thanks to the success with Android, which just passed Apple's iOS as the fastest-growing mobile platform in the world, analysts expect sales to soar 78 percent this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That's far better than rivals Apple, Nokia (NOK), Research In Motion (RIMM), and Samsung Electronics.

Chou is looking for ways to extend his Android lead. Drew Bamford, HTC's director of user experience, says he plans to make Android phones better able to access video, music, and other content. That's been "a soft spot with Android products," he says. HTC is teaming up with U.S. e-commerce site Kobo to sell e-books and hopes to sign deals with retailers such as Amazon.com (AMZN) and Barnes & Noble (BKS). There's also an expected launch by early next year of an Android-powered tablet PC to compete with the iPad, something Chou and others at HTC won't discuss.

HTC is an unlikely Android leader. When the company got its start in 1997, it manufactured personal digital assistants for Compaq. HTC followed the tried-and-true Taiwanese outsourcing formula of designing and manufacturing gadgets for other companies without a brand name of its own. Chou got his first big break in 2002 when Microsoft awarded HTC a contract to make smartphones, and the manufacturer quickly became the world's top producer of Windows phones. It set up its U.S. headquarters in Bellevue, Wash., to be close to Microsoft's home office.

Even as the Microsoft business was growing, Chou says he worried that a brandless HTC would forever remain a low-margin manufacturer of commodity products. "We were doing pretty well, we were making a lot of profit," he says. "But we were mostly minor partners" for telecom operators that bought and resold HTC phones. In 2007, the year Apple introduced the iPhone and set the smartphone market on fire, Chou decided to move away from the anonymous contract-manufacturing business. Last year, HTC spent $100 million on a fourth-quarter marketing blitz, and Chou says he'll spend up to $400 million this year. The company is now the world's fourth-largest smartphone manufacturer after Nokia, RIM, and Apple, according to IDC.

Brand New Or Second Hand Which Is The Better Car For You

 When it comes to buying a car, everyone has their own preferences as to whether they go for new or second hand.

Some people will only go for new cars, straight from, for instance, Porsche dealers and very often they'll return to same the Porsche dealers all the way throughout their car buying life.

Other people are a lot more open to where they shop for their cars and are happy to spend their money in new or second hand dealerships, as long as the car is right.

And there are some who will only buy from second hand dealerships, having had either a bad experience with new car dealers in the past or they simply believe that you get more for your money if you buy second hand.

Irrelevant of which category you fall into, the truth is that none of them are wrong in general and second hand car dealers can just be as good as new ones across the board.

However, when looking at individual circumstances, it becomes apparent that there is an obvious divide and a more suitable option for certain people.

So how do you decide if you should buy brand new or second hand?

First and foremost, you have to look at your budget, as for the most part, the newer the car, the more expensive it's going to be. There are some exceptions to this, however, particularly if you're looking at high end cars (for instance, you'll often pay just as much - if not more - for a car if look at second hand Porsche dealers selling cars from 20 or 30 years ago than those Porsche dealers selling brand new models), but generally speaking, the newer the car, the greater the price.

Therefore, if you're wanting, for example, a large 4x4 with leather seats, climate control and every other possible extra, you'll find that you might not be able to pick up a brand new model for the money you have available, but find one that's five years old and it's very likely that it will fall into your budget.

Another point that you have to keep in mind is how important actually having a new car fresh off the production line is to you, as it can have both positive and negative points.

By having the latest car with a brand new registration plate, yes, people are likely to turn and look in your direction; you can guarantee that no one else has driven your car and chances are it's unlikely anything will go wrong with it, but you'll also see a massive drop in value as soon as you drive it away from the dealer - often around 20 percent.

There really is no right or wrong choice when deciding upon whether the next car you're going to buy is a new or second hand one and it depends entirely on your individual circumstances. Look at your budget, what you need in a car and then go look at both - you might just be surprised at what you find if you consider all options.