HTC hits the road with the One

Phonemaker HTC is taking to touring the US to promote its new flagship phone through events in 11 cities.

The HTC One Live Experience Tour will include pop-up stores in shopping malls, film screenings in selected cinemas and even live music performance by a number of artists including Pharell. It is scheduled to visit 11 cities including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Chicago, and of course, in this age of social media and sharing, a number of the events will be streamed live.

Visitors to the htconeconcerts site can also register to attend the concets and get more information about lineups in different cities on different dates.

The tour is bound to grab attention and the Taiwanese company deserves some for its latest product. The HTC One would already be making headway in terms of sales if it hadn't been for the company's recent supply chain difficulties.

Its official launch had to be delayed because its manufacturing partners decided that the company was no longer a 'top tier' customer and put HTC's orders on standby while they provided their skills to its direct competitors, such as Samsung, instead.

Thanks to the delays, HTC could be forced to go head-to-head with Samsung, which is also gearing up to officially launch its flagship, the Galaxy SIV at the end of April. However, in the case of Samsung, the gap between the phone's official unveiling and its actual rollout to consumers is believed to be because the phone itself is not ready for use and that its software is suffering from bugs, rather than because of supply chain constraints.

The HTC pop-up stores, which will appear in a number of major cities starting on April 11, are scheduled to stay open for up to three months in order to spread the word and help raise the HTC brand.

Of the planned events, Erin McGee, HTC's North American vice president of marketing, said: 'HTC One Showrooms are taking the concept of a pop-up store to different place by creating a large, playful, interactive exhibit where we expect people to be entertained and have a new experience with the HTC One at each visit. It gives them the chance to truly immerse themselves in everything the phone offers at their own pace -- and delivers a different experience than a traditional retail setting.'

The handset is already available for pre-order with AT&T ahead of its official launch on April 19. The phone arrived in the UK, Germany and Taiwan at the end of March and HTC confirmed Monday that the One will also be making its Indian and Australian debut at the end of April, though it stopped short of giving an official date.