HTC teases its newest smartphone ahead of India relaunch

HTC was not exactly at the **top of its game** when it exited the smartphone game in India. The Taiwanese smartphone brand was building premium devices, but making all the wrong hardware and pricing choices, which fell horribly short when compared to brands like Oppo, Vivo and more importantly, Xiaomi in India. While Samsung changed its strategy and came up with the budget M series, HTC somehow could not let go of its premium smartphone roots, and eventually exited the Indian smartphone market back in July 2018. The HTC U11+ was the last smartphone it launched in India before its exit. According to an earlier report by the Economic Times, HTC was to return to India with a new strategy, as an online-only brand. Earlier this month, a couple of high-ranking officials from HTC told PTI, that the Taiwanese brand is looking to re-enter the Indian smartphone market . [caption id=“attachment_5755471” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”] HTC aims to “reboot” hits sales in 2019.[/caption] As per the rumour, HTC was expected to enter the smartphone market as early as August (this month) and will be introducing new smartphones using the Inone Technology distribution network. It would break into the Indian market by launching a new flagship series that would pack in some unique features. Today, HTC put out a tweet from its India handle teasing us with an outline of its new and upcoming smartphone, which is expected to be the HTC Wildfire.

Hello India! Our journey of innovation continues. 

Can you guess what's coming next?#htcIndia pic.twitter.com/bTavBjvcUw

— HTC India (@HTC_IN) August 12, 2019

The tweet reveals HTC’s “journey of innovation” in the smartphone industry from the first (finger-friendly) touch-screen smartphones like HTC Touch (2007) to the Android-powered HTC Dream (2008) to world’s first all-metal smartphone (metal unibody) the HTC One in 2013.

HTC Wildfire specifications

As per GSMArena, the outline of the smartphone shown at the end of the teaser video will be the new HTC Wildfire. It will pack in an HD+ display resolution (720 x 1520 pixels). The source is still not aware of the size nor the type of display. There will be a dewdrop notch at the front that will house a 16 MP selfie camera. One can expect HTC to add a dual rear camera setup with a 16 MP + 5 MP camera sensors. Also at the back will be a capacitive fingerprint reader. As for the core hardware, HTC is expected to drop in a MediaTek Helio P23 SoC and pair it with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB of storage. Powering the Wildfire will be a 3,500 mAh battery. While the hardware specifications do look interesting, HTC’s crux has always been its pricing. The above specifications clearly don’t even cut it for the budget range in 2019, with the competition offering Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 and 700 series chipsets. So it’s safe to assume that HTC has done its homework and will place this smartphone in the upper end of the entry-level segment. Still, it’s best to take the above specifications with a pinch of salt and wait for HTC to reveal its smartphone line up for the price-conscious Indian market, which should happen soon.