HTC has just launched their first Android-based phone, the HTC Dream, in Australia. However, they’ve also recently announced the HTC Magic — what many will no doubt see as the successor to the Dream — in other markets. Allow me to offer a grim and admittedly entirely baseless prediction of the events to follow:
- Some Australians buy the Dream, but not as many as HTC had hoped. The real cause of this shortfall will be that most people interested enough to even know what an Android-based phone is will have already heard of the Magic, and be eager to get their hands on that — not the Dream.
- HTC interprets this as a general lack of interest from the Australian market in the Android platform.
- HTC therefore slightly scales back its operations here, and delays the Australian release of the Magic. Sufficient interest has not yet spread to Australia, they will think.
- I have to wait even longer for my Magic.
With so many reminders of the absurd predictions large corporations can make about a market (The Fox Broadcasting Company continually axing winners, BBC Worldwide somehow thinking that Top Gear Australia was a good idea, Microsoft’s certainty that Vista would be well-received, etc.), how could I not be pessimistic?
Please, HTC, prove me wrong.
