Taiwanese mobile manufacturer HTC has set an ambitious target for 2019. It is aiming to ship at least 1 million devices of its trailblazing Exodus 1 blockchain smartphone. Released on ‘early access period’ last December the phone was made available exclusively through Bitcoin and Ethereum payments.
It was also (it still is) available for purchase through online retailers. To achieve its 1 million sales target, HTC is making the phone more available to a wider audience by increasing the payment methods to include US Dollar, Litecoin (LTC) and leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance’s native token Coin (BNB). HTC‘s “decentralized chief officer” Phil Chen made this announcement on Tuesday during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Officially announced during the Consensus 2018 back in May, the phone was designed to retail at about $700 the equivalent of which is currently about 0.2 BTC, or 5.23 ETH. Litecoin became an option during the launch of the phone in the early access phase in December 2018. It is also selling for about 16.23 LTC at the current rates.
Phil also took the opportunity at the Tuesday event to announce HTC’s integration of the popular mobile web browser Opera on Exodus 1 following Opera’s addition of a cryptocurrency wallet and dApp browser to its browser a few weeks ago. This integration is designed to streamline the customers’ use of cryptocurrency within Exodus 1. Chen explained that the Exodus was built to support Web 3.0. In addition, HTC’s own Zion cryptocurrency wallet will be accessible on the Opera browser.
Charles Hamel, the Head of Crypto at Opera said in a statement that,
“We are at the dawn of a new generation of the Web, one where new decentralized services will challenge the status quo. HTC and Opera have both made the bold decision to be the first to step up and enable this transformation.”
Chen also said that HTC is pushing for at least 80% of the most popular dApps to be featured on the Exodus.
In order for HTC to ship at least 1 million Exodus devices, they will have to widen the scope of supply from the exclusive online retailers to also offline carrier stores to ensure that more people have easier access to the device. Chen acknowledged the need to have such conversations with the leading carriers in the US and other European nations and the conversations are in their early stages.
“We’ve already had some conversation that’s preliminary but part of why we’re going to Mobile World Congress is to have those conversations,” he said.
