HTC
HTC built the first Android phone to ship and was once among the largest manufacturers in the world. Its weight now sits in VIVE, its virtual reality business.
About HTC
HTC's place in the history of the smartphone is larger than its current share of the market. It built the first Android phone to reach customers, was one of the main manufacturers of Windows Mobile devices before that, and for a period around 2011 was one of the largest phone makers in the world. The metal-bodied designs it shipped in that era set expectations the rest of the industry then had to meet. It did not hold that position. The phone business contracted sharply over the following decade against competitors with far greater scale, and while HTC still sells phones, they are a small part of what the company does now. Its centre of gravity moved to virtual reality. VIVE, launched in partnership with Valve, was one of the first credible consumer VR systems, and the headsets and the enterprise business around them are where the company has concentrated since. HTC was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Taoyuan, Taiwan; Cher Wang, its co-founder, has led it as chair and chief executive.