The original HTC Desire was launched in 2010 and at the time, it was one of an emerging new generation device; one that, on paper at least, far outperformed the Apple iPhone competition by offering superior box specifications plus a cheaper price tag. The HTC Desire combined a 3.7-inch AMOLED screen of 480 by 800 pixels with a 1 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, a 5MP rear camera and a blend of Android 2.1 Eclair and HTC Sense. The Desire was followed by the Desire HD, which came with a larger screen and an 8MP camera. However, in 2011, HTC changed their model lineup and the Desire name was pushed into the mid-range with the launch of the HTC Desire S. Since then, the Desire name has been linked to a number of lower and mid-range smartphones. And the mid-range end of the market is where HTC have been pushing, despite the marketing and presence for the flagship One M9 and M9+ devices.
Jack Tung, President of HTC North Asia, has explained that in his region HTC have sold over one million of the HTC Desire line of smartphones from the period of May 2014 to April 2015. This line includes the HTC Desire 816, Desire 820 and Desire 626 and the new dual-SIM Desire 820s. HTC’s ambition is to sell another million of the Desire family in the next six month (by the end of the year), which would imply that the business is expecting to double shipments of the smartphones. The Desire 820 is one of the more successful models in the recent Desire range, being based around a 5.5-inch 720p resolution display with either a quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon or an octa core MediaTek processor, depending on the variant (and there have been several including the dual-SIM 820s). The Desire 820 models also come with a 13MP rear camera sensor and an 8MP front facing camera; this is a large screen handset with a reasonable core specification including the cameras.
The flagship HTC One models, the M9 and M9+, have not been selling as well as HTC hoped for. Jack’s comment here is that he expects shipments of the flagship models to pick up in the third quarter as demand for the iPhone 6 is expected to ebb. This is something of an industry trend, however; depending on the market, sales of the iPhone drop whereas sales of Android flagships remain constant, so it looks as though the Android devices are gaining ground when in reality it is how the market numbers work. However, it also throws into focus how even a premium Android manufacturer struggles in the head to head competition against the iPhone, one of the more expensive products available in the market.