-Mobile would rather use its own “T-Mobile MDA Touch" logo without showing the HTC label and Sprint called the model “Sprint Touch by HTC.” Operator customers did not believe that the HTC logo could provide add-on value for the phone. Their attitude towards the brand changed only after the HTC Touch became a hit product that was heavily discussed in trade magazines and on the Internet. From that point, more operator customers allowed HTC to co-brand its products.
However, some handset makers that were subcontracting to HTC remained concerned about the introduction of
the HTC brand. For intance, a firm called i-mate (based in Dubai) shifted part of its orders to Inventec Corporation, a Taiwanese competitor of HTC, although i-mate used to outsource handsets exclusively from HTC for sales
in Armenia, Australia, Italy, India, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, etc. Arguably, HTC might have lost
these orders even if it did not take the branding road, since placing orders with multiple subcontractors to reduce risk
was a general policy among many ODM clients.