CTH is the Taiwanese company started by John Chu in 1996. Together with his fellow IT students returnees from the US they dreamed of building a company that would rule the market not only in local Taiwan, but also globally. Their first major product, one of the world's first touch-screen smartphones, appeared in 2000. The technology they used was already known and the success of the company was built on the combination of low-price and good quality. For a short period of time CTH has been a market leader in its sector. However during early 2013, CTH lost much of this global market share due to increased competition and innovation coming from its biggest competitors. At that time CTH already had 12000 employees in 30 countries around the world.