Peter Chou wants to turn HTC, which used to make mobile phones for other firms, into a brand in its own right

THE pockets of Peter Chou, the chief executive of HTC, a Taiwanese handset-maker, are bulging. He likes to carry his firm’s forthcoming gadgets around with him. At HTC’s headquarters near Taipei, he recently dug out no fewer than six handsets. But if HTC fulfils its ambitions, Mr Chou will need to start wearing cargo pants. The firm has long toiled in obscurity as an “original design manufacturer”, or ODM, quietly developing and building high-end “smart” phones for leading Western mobile operators, including Verizon and Orange. Now he wants his firm to become a household name alongside Apple and Nokia. HTC is releasing a new phone, the Hero, in Europe later this month (consumers in Asia will have to wait until later in the summer, and in America until autumn), which it hopes will be a step in this direction. If its transformation succeeds, the firm will become a model for other Asian technology companies.

Mr Chou can sound more like a Californian manage