Ask a self-professed "gadget freak" such as Mita Srinivasan what HTC is best known for and she will explain it is the high-technology company behind the first mobile to include Google's Android software.
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Yet Ms Srinivasan, who is the director of Market Buzz International, a communications agency with numerous clients in the technology sector, says many people outside the sector are not as familiar with HTC's smartphones, tablets and other products as they are with those from major competitors.
"If you're in the techie, gadgety field like I am, then you know of them," says Ms Srinivasan. "I haven't seen any kind of branding or traction out there [with others]."
HTC wants to change that.
Last month, the company said it would focus more on emerging markets next year.
The company has already "gone local" in this part of the world with a new marketing campaign, says Vladimir Malugin, the executive director for HTC in the Middle East and Africa.
"We've invested in terms of marketing and growing our distribution," he says.
HTC's tactics have included increasing the number of promoters who work with its gadgets in UAE stores. It has also been pushing more products to local retailers such as Carrefour, Sharaf DG, Jumbo Electronics and Dubai Duty Free.
"We've effectively grown over four times this year," says Mr Malugin.
While he will not disclose precise sales figures, Mr Malugin notes that analysts peg the company's smartphone shipments within the region at more than 1 million units, with about 7 to 8 per cent market share.
Still, the company seems to have a long way to go. A poll of more than 4,400 people conducted this month for The National found that mobiles made by Research In Motion, Apple, Nokia and Samsung were all more popular as primary phones than HTC's offerings in the UAE.
Just 1 per cent of almost 1,900 respondents in a separate poll cited HTC as the maker of the tablet they most use in the Emirates, according to Netlog, an online social portal that conducted both surveys.
Here, Mr Malugin discusses how HTC is trying to bolster its presence in both the Emirates and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region:
Q: When did HTC first get started in the UAE?
A: Well, we've been present in the region since 2006. Historically, we've been doing business not on a very large scale [here]. But since last year the MEA region was included in our strategic global markets, and that's when we really started investing in the region and when we started growing our sales.
Q: How have you been trying to grow HTC's business in the region as of late?
A: We've significantly increased our presence on the ground and operate out of the UAE. We've grown our presence out of Egypt, Saudi Arabia [and] GCC states. We've opened distribution in sub-Saharan Africa and also put an office in South Africa.
Q: Yet some market research shows HTC trailing in popularity compared with competitors such as Apple and Samsung. How are you trying to boost awareness of your brand locally?
A: This year we have done the first local, Middle East campaign focusing on our ChaCha Facebook phone. This is a 360-degree campaign, including TV, outdoor [advertising] and print, digital - and this is a campaign effectively conceived and produced here in the Middle East and shot in the region. We aired it on the channels here, so we're really going local now and making sure our messaging and products are appealing to the local level.
Q: Besides advertising, what else are you doing in the region?
A: We've started doing large-scale launches of our product. We've done many consumer roadshows and focused on key malls in the Emirates, Saudi, Egypt and South Africa. We've done a number of events for consumers at the American University in Dubai Knowledge Village. If we look at Abu Dhabi it was Marina Mall and many other places. We've significantly grown our presence online in terms of our Facebook fan base. Just this year alone we've gone from 500 people in January to in excess of 43,000.
Q: What approach will you take to boost sales here in the future?
A: One of the things that we're trying to achieve next year, because of the importance of this region for HTC globally, is we're trying to bring much closer our [product] launches in the region to our global dates. Consumers in the UAE, Saudi and Egypt are going to see our products that are launched globally be available in the Middle East much sooner, if not on the same day.
Q: Why has the company not already been releasing products on the same day here as other markets?
A: There have been a number of staggered launches where we were launching in western Europe and taking that product in the Middle East [days later,] linked to the availability of the Arabic version of the software. Towards the end of this year, Sensation XE and XL [smartphones] were the first examples where we brought the launch dates close.
For a video review of HTC's Sensation XL smartphone in action, visit: www.thenational.ae/business
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