On Thursday, HTC introduced a new smartphone that it hopes will keep its sales figures buoyed: the HTC Rezound. The phone is an LTE 4G device outfitted with a 1.5-gigahertz dual-core processor, an eight-megapixel camera and 32 gigabytes of storage. The phone will be compatible with the latest version of Android, called Ice Cream Sandwich, when the software becomes available early next year.
“When we started in this industry, we were a niche player,” Peter Chou, the chief executive of HTC, said during a news media event in Manhattan. He pointed to the Droid Incredible, the Thunderbolt and the Rhyme as flagship devices that have helped improve the company’s stature in the industry.
The Rezound, which will be available from Verizon beginning Nov. 14 for $300, will come prepackaged with a pair of Beats headphones. The device is one of the first fruits of the partnership between HTC and Beats, the audio company that HTC bought a majority stake in this year. “HTC is focused on the mobile experience, and we believe audio is a big part of that,” Mr. Chou said.
Jimmy Iovine, the chief executive of Interscope Records, who is on the board of Beats, said music was the ultimate app for mobile phones. “The record industry needs this,” he said. “The music industry has got to go through the phone.”