Preparation
On the left is Peter Chou, the CEO of HTC. Middle one is Jack Tong, the general manager of Dopod. (picture: beephone.com)
When the company did ODM for one of the English company O2, they had the idea of having their own brand of HTC. At that time, O2 thought HTC had an amazing “Hidden Potential”, so they encouraged them to create its own brand.
HTC was an ODM factory. If they created their own brand, it would cause a lot of problems and conflicts. It might lose its customers because of the new brand. However, this was the difficulty that HTC had to face when it made the change.
HTC was more familiar with the European market, so they approached the European market with “dual-brand strategy” first. The dual-brand strategy was using two different brand marks on each cell phone they produced. They also put their own brand marks on their ODM products. On the other hand, they kept their own customers and worked on the relationship with other companies well and carefully.
HTC did the ODM of Dapod 900 for
Dopod. (picture: eprice.com)
In Asia, they entered the market by Dopod .The sub-brand was to avoid the confusion and questions that might raise to HTC.
The phone of Dopod was designed by HTC. On the other hand, Dopod acted as a retail company only sold the products made by HTC. HTC had created a new layer of relationship between two companies. In addition, Cher Wang was the major shareholders of both companies.
The “dual-brand “and “sub-brand” strategies were successful in Asia and Europe. HTC also gradually had accumulated their strength toward having their own brand.