It would appear that Android backers are finally giving up their practice of carpet-bombing the market with countless models that offer little differentiation. Thus far, this served the Android camp well as the resulting media coverage diverted spotlight away from Apple’s iPhone and helped mainstream smartphones built around Google’s platform. Earlier this month, Sony Ericsson made public plans to release fewer phones in 2012 and now Taiwan-based handset maker HTC is following suit.
The company will focus on quality and so-called ‘hero’ devices rather than waste time and energy developing a multitude of models, most of which have short shelf lives. This will help cut development cost and boost HTC’s bottom line that took a hit in the crucial holiday quarter amid the iPhone 4S march.
HTC UK chief Phil Roberson told Mobile Magazine today:
We had a fantastic year, with 65% growth year on year in the UK. But in Q4 we delivered a lot more products than in the past. Now we want to create more of a ‘hero’ approach. We make great phones, but it is hard to do that when the portfolio is spread too much. We have to get back to focusing on what made us great – amazing hardware and a great customer experience. We ended 2011 with far more products than we started out with. We tried to do too much. So 2012 is about giving our customers something special. We need to make sure we do not go so far down the line that we segment our products by launching lots of different SKUs.
HTC will also “take a backseat in the tablet market,” according to the publication. The news confirms a BGR report a month ago that claimed HTC’s release schedule is going to be “shockingly quiet” for most of the first quarter of this year.
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