Not only big, the biggest one. But given increase in costs (MS tax, now Apple tax, tomorrow who knows) at some point it could be more cost effective for HTC to stop paying anyone and just not sell in the states. WO patents are much harder to get and very expensive to keep, so no big problem there.
On the other hand, Nokia was the largest global handset seller at a time virtually nobody in the US market knew what it was. Ignoring the US market is viable, and the US market isn't for everyone. Look how many car manufacturers have tried and failed to make a go of it. (At least Americans can pronounce Nokia. Peugeot didn't stand a chance.)
I'd argue that you're using the wrong statistics. You should also take into account the average cost per mobile phone when determining the size of a market.
If the US market is 3X smaller than China's (by volume), but spends 3X more for each phone, then the markets are roughly equivalent in the terms that a company would care about: profits.
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Not only big, the biggest one. But given increase in costs (MS tax, now Apple tax, tomorrow who knows) at some point it could be more cost effective for HTC to stop paying anyone and just not sell in the states. WO patents are much harder to get and very expensive to keep, so no big problem there.
> Not only big, the biggest one.
On the other hand, Nokia was the largest global handset seller at a time virtually nobody in the US market knew what it was. Ignoring the US market is viable, and the US market isn't for everyone. Look how many car manufacturers have tried and failed to make a go of it. (At least Americans can pronounce Nokia. Peugeot didn't stand a chance.)
> Not only big, the biggest one.
Statistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...) would disagree with you.
I'd argue that you're using the wrong statistics. You should also take into account the average cost per mobile phone when determining the size of a market.
If the US market is 3X smaller than China's (by volume), but spends 3X more for each phone, then the markets are roughly equivalent in the terms that a company would care about: profits.
Yes, I totally agree with you... But do you have access to such data?
The biggest market is the EU.