HTC announced today that it is opening a new R&D office in Durham, North Carolina. The office will employ 45 people and will focus on wireless technology research. The North Carolina facility will be first East Coast location for HTC and the third in the United States. HTC currently operates an office out of Seattle that is focused on user experience design and a second subsidiary office out of San Francisco. The San Francisco office is the home of One & Co, an industrial design company acquired by HTC in 2008.
HTC is regarded as one of the top handset manufacturers, producing a steady line of solid handsets that run on Android and Windows Phone 7. The Taiwanese manufacturer has released a variety of Android handsets which include the HTC DROID Incredible, the T-Mobile G2 and the myTouch 4G. On the Windows Phone side, HTC kicked off Windows Phone with five handsets including the HTC 7 Trophy, the 7 Mozart, the Surround on AT&T and the HD7 on T-Mobile. While a new research facility stateside does not necessarily mean the U.S. will see more handsets, it does up the chance that a prototype or two may land in a bar somewhere ad we all know how that story goes.
Full press release detailing the R&D office is on the second page.