Florian Seiche, vice president of HTC Europe has revealed that the HTC brand is getting a boost from European operators who are increasingly choosing to purchase HTC-branded phones, rather than offering them as own-name devices.

Seiche also revealed that Vodafone will be another UK operator (joining launch partner Orange) to offer the HTC Touch Diamond, adding an HTC handset to its range for the first time. T-Mobile will also sell the handset, but as the T-Mobile MDA Compact IV.

The HTC Touch Diamond is a touchscreen Windows Mobile 6.1 3G-enabled handset that offers HTC's TouchFlo 3D interface, full browser, GPS, Wi-Fi, 3MP camera and media playing abilities that's designed to rival Apple's iPhone.

Last year around 35% of HTC's European revenues were from ODM-branded mobile phones to operators, expected to drop to 15-20% in 2008, Seiche claimed, as a result of the increase in HTC branded sales.

>> First look - HTC Touch Diamond
>> Via - DigiTimes