HTC claims Apple deal will ‘pay off’ with better phones in 2013

HTC’s 2013 handset releases will fare better than their predecessors thanks to the benefits of its 10-year licensing agreement with Apple, a company executive has claimed.

President of HTC’s China division, Ray Yam held an interview with the Economic Observer of China, where he said: ‘The settlement with Apple will start to pay off next year.’

‘The biggest benefit to us is that we can put more energy into innovation,’ he added, ‘which is more important than anything else for a technology company.’

Yam also claimed that HTC had spent a lot of time and money on various legal battles with Apple, implying that the company will be better able to push products effectively having freed up these resources.

As was previously reported, Yam reiterated that the company has undergone a major revamp to its sales and marketing strategy for the new year and new product portfolio, but added that since the agreement with Apple its current projects have kicked into a higher gear.

Yam revealed another strategy change includes a new approach to negotiation with carrier networks which, hopefully, might make the company a bit more visible than it has been recently.

That particular problem was summed up fairly neatly by the fate of the HTC One range, a set of phones which was more or less universally praised by critics but largely ignored by consumers, a result many have attributed to a lack of marketing presence compared to Nokia, Samsung and Apple’s campaigns funded by massive budgets.