HTC looks to China to ring changes On this year's Singles Day - a recent Chinese invention to celebrate November 11 that has since turned into a day of shopping and large discounts - consumers spent more than $3bn alone on Taobao, China's version of eBay. "I think they are talking about all of [Best Buy's sales] added together" for that one day, Ray Yam, the China chief of smartphone maker HTC, told the Financial Times. That comparison might be a slight exaggeration, but it is clear Mr Yam is keen to get a piece of that fast-growing ecommerce market for the Taiwanese smartphone maker, which globally has failed to measure up to competition from Samsung and Apple. China has, therefore, now become the centrepiece of HTC's turnround efforts. Mr Yam's job is to find new ways to tailor its hardware, software and retailing strategy to the habits of Chinese consumers, whom HTC hopes will buy enough of its phones to offset plummeting sales in Europe and the US. Its move to deepen relationships with local internet groups also highlights one of the most challenging aspects of China's mobile phone market for foreign companies. With Facebook, Twitter and many Google-related services blocked on the mainland, internet users rely on local alternatives such as Baidu for search and on sites such as Renren's and Tencent's microblogs for social networking. The country's largest telecoms carrier, China Mobile, uses its own 3G technology that is not compatible with many phones, including all but the latest iPhone. That pressures foreign companies such as HTC to spend what Mr Yam calls "a lot of engineering resources" tweaking their phones so they work and have appeal locally. "It's like a parallel universe," says Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA, a technology consultancy in Beijing, of the Chinese internet. HTC has a 4.5 per cent share of the mainland Chinese market, boosted from 4.1 per cent a year ago by its popular Desire line of mid-tier phones. But Samsung and Apple dominate the top of the market even in China, a pinnacle for which HTC is still aiming, says Mr Yam. This week, the company is launching a slate of new devices in Beijing including its Windows 8-based phones and an Android model called J Butterfly that features a 5-inch high-definition screen. HTC also risks losing market share to mid-tier local brands as they develop ever more sophisticated phones that often sell for less than equivalent HTC models, says Daniel Chang, an analyst at Macquarie. To fight back, the company is looking to expand its retail presence - adding up to 1,000 stores in the coming year to its existing 2,600 outlets - and to find new ways to appeal to consumers in the increasingly crowded mainland market. That's where ecommerce could come in. HTC is discussing partnerships with China's largest online retailers, Mr Yam says. He points out that it was the first phonemaker in China to partner with a local bank to develop phones that can be used as mobile wallets, facilitating payment for online purchases. Some HTC phones come with near-field communications chips that enable them to be tapped against a special reader to make a payment. HTC has also got the jump on Apple in one respect. While it is still unclear if China Mobile will carry the iPhone 5, HTC has hammered out deals so that its phones launching this week will debut simultaneously on all three main carriers, says Mr Yam.