By Did you know HTC has their own retail locations in the Czech Republic and Russia? I didn’t either, but after realizing just how cool it’d be for them to have their own retail location through Europe, North America, and other parts of the world, I’m hoping they don’t stop there. The Prague location in the Czech Republic opened last month with their Moscow, Russia store following just a couple of weeks later, so perhaps this could be the first of many launches planned for other countries.
HTC opening retail locations makes a lot of sense (no pun intended, I swear!): the advent of Android (and the ridiculous success it’s enjoyed thus far in 2010) has breathed new life into their product line and has given them brand awareness like they’ve never seen before. They certainly have enough phones to justify it and I’m sure they’d love to rival the type of retail experiences offered by Apple and now Microsoft, fairly recently.
The scope of their expansion might not be as deep as we’ve seen with their aforementioned competition (with Microsoft being considered more of a partner), but that’s because their product line doesn’t extend beyond phones. Still, it’s a great first step in continuing to build their name and reputation up and the added image that comes along with having a string of retail locations definitely won’t hurt them (because we all know they’re rollin’ in the dough).
[via PocketNow]
I like the style, minimalist like Apple and cartoonish like Microsoft.
I want to work in one :o
I so hope they open a store in the UK. I’ll move anywhere to work there!
HTC Heaven? *hugs Desire*
There was an HTC booth at a mall in Maryland; I was surprised.
Do you know why they can do this? Because in europe there is no stupid thing called CDMA where you have no SIM. Also they don’t have different frequencies for 3G on different networks, like T-Mobile and AT&T 3G.
You can buy Desire/Legend and use it on any network with cheap plan. Or even better, buy ultra cheap prepaid card and pay as you go.
On my last trip there I had prepaid and it was hell lot of cheaper and better than AT&T crap. Even when I didn’t count that those greedy bastards in USA charge for incoming and outgoing messages and connections to make price of them DOUBLE.
Try to move with your phone from network to network in USA.
So sad that USA is so much behind on this market…
There is one HTC store in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but I only saw Windows phones in display – as of last week.
These look like very empty stores…
Probably a good idea they don’t. I’d be stalking them all the time. Except, I get the scoop online way before the store employees know anything.
BTW, am I the only one who thinks the HTC logo and the Hulu.com logo look a little too similar?
The new USSR (aka Russia) but not the US? That makes a lot of sense, NOT.
Other than playing with the actual phones, they wouldn’t make money off hardcore fans with limited disposable incomes. We shop around like crazy. On the O2 forum thread asking when the Desire was coming out, every other post detailed an offer from network x or store y, giving the contract length, details and handset/monthly cost, and a total cost of ownership.
It did in fact work out cheaper for me to just buy the handset alone, but even then I managed to get it from O2 for about £120 cheaper than anywhere else.
Eh, now Apple will sue HTC for infringing the patent they have on opening up retail stores.
Mike C, it makes total sense – read post 6.
I have to agree with johnnyk126 – post 6. This is primary reason why Google Store didn’t succeeded. Plus in US people are not accustom to buying the phone separate from service plan.
I HATE how everyone uses different frequencies, In Canada Bell and TELUS both use the same as AT&T, but the others are all different.
@Simon….it would work. Just load the windows up and make it look like a phone shop and people will walk in. I could see this working, with a flagship store in London.
Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!
Was in Prague last week and saw this store, looked great, took some photos.