Taiwan's HTC wants to see its own brand competing with Apple

BEIJING — East Asia is the world's electronics factory, yet unless they are Japanese, producers are largely anonymous. Now HTC, a Taiwanese maker of smartphones, is moving out of the shadows and trying to establish its own brand name as it competes with Apple's iPhone.

HTC supplies U.S. carriers Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile but says a year ago only one in 10 Americans knew its name. With the help of marketing by cellular carriers and HTC's own television ads during the baseball World Series, HTC says that number is up to 40 percent.

"We want to be one of the leaders," said John Wang, the 13-year-old company's chief marketing officer.

In trying to establish a global brand, HTC is following in the footsteps of another Taiwanese company, Acer, which is battling Dell for the title of second-largest personal computer maker.

In the U.S., HTC made a splash this summer by producing the first phone, the EVO 4G, that's able to use a fourth-generation wireless data network. HTC also manufactured Google's first phone, the Nexus One.

HTC, with U.S. headquarters in Bellevue, cut its teeth on smartphones that used Microsoft's Windows Mobile software. But when Google released its Android smartphone software in 2008, HTC was the first manufacturer on board, and that's paid off.

Every U.S. carrier except AT&T, the home of the iPhone, is pushing Android phones as the alternative to the iPhone.

Among consumers, HTC needs to create a distinctive identity as more than a manufacturer, said Joseph Pai, chairman of advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather Taiwan.

"They get the technology right, but Apple is considered fun and creative and very bright," said Pai. "HTC is quite serious. Their technology is good. They keep coming out with new products. But they need to find their own personality."