HTC Touch sales half that of Apple's iPhone

Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC has reported its sales for 2007, and it looks like the touch-screen smart phone market is more balanced than it is often portrayed to be.

The HTC Touch and Touch Dual run Windows Mobile 6 and utilize a gestural touch interface much like Apple's iPhone, the lineup's chief competition.

Steve Jobs said last week at Macworld that Apple had sold 4 million iPhones worldwide since its launch. HTC today reported a surprisingly aggressive 2 million Touch phones had been sold. In total, the company reported sales of 11.8 million handsets, 12% more than it had sold in 2006, garnering 12% more revenue as a result.

LG, producer of another popular touch-screen phone, the Voyager, is scheduled to release its Q4 reports on Thursday. That company had a guidance of 22.5 million total handsets sold for the fourth quarter of 2007.

With the impending release of a Nokia handset that was shown to run on the Symbian S60 platform providing tactile feedback, and a Sony Ericsson touch-equipped handset it previewed late last year, 2008 will have even more options for consumers seeking a touch device.