Battered mobile technology manufacturer HTC has a new press event scheduled for September 29, to be held in Hankone, Japan, where a “double flagship” device will be released. That’s according to an image spotted by popular Twitter user @upleaks, who says in his tweet that the image was posted to HTC’s account on Weibo, the Chinese social networking equivalent to Twitter…
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As predicted by the company itself, Android device manufacturer HTC today reported bleak earnings results for the April through June period. For the three month period, the Taiwan-based company lost NT$8.03 billion after tax and operating costs are taken into consideration. HTC reported profits during the prior four quarters, but apparently those couldn’t hold, likely due to lackluster demand for the One M9. Today’s reported losses spread out over the company’s shares come out to an approximate NT$9.70 ($0.3) per share. Revenue for the quarter was NT$33 billion.
Just weeks before the release of HTC’s M9, CEO Peter Chou steps down from his position to focus on innovation. Chou has taken a position to lead HTC’s Future Development Lab. As for Chou’s replacement, chairwoman Cher Wang is stepping up to the plate to take over his position.
Wang co-founded HTC with Chou back in 1997 and since then she has taken over many of the daily operations within the company. This is definitely doing to be an interesting transition for both Chou and Wang as HTC approaches the launch of its 2015 One M9 flagship smartphone, Grip smartband, and Vive VR headset later this year…
According to a report from Bloomberg, HTC has recently hired Paul Golden. If you haven’t heard of Golden, you’re probably familiar with Samsung’s Galaxy brand that he helped create during his role as Chief Marketing Officer at Samsung.
Bloomberg mentions that “two people familiar with the matter” say that Golden was recently hired as a contractor for HTC. Golden is working as an adviser and reporting to HTC’s chairman Cher Wang. At the moment, there aren’t any long-term employment plans for Golden, but his three-month contractor position could definitely become beneficial for HTC.
HTC acknowledges that it needs more than high-end handsets
While HTC technically ended 2013 in profit, the company says that declining margins are likely to see it end the first quarter of this year with a loss. HTC reported a wafer-thin profit of $10M from revenues of $1.4B, the latter figure 28 percent down year-on year. Its global market share of shipments was just two percent.
Reuters reports that the company plans to make a wider range of more affordable phones – the same strategy used by Samsung. Samsung made most of its money last year from a combination of its chip-manufacturing business and low- to mid-range handsets, and has itself come under pressure from low-cost competitor handsets …
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HTC will debut the Titan, a Windows Phone 7 ‘Mango’ device, on AT&T this Fall.
A rather curious message comes from the HTC camp, with chairwoman Cher Wang confirming her company has given the notion of buying its own mobile operating system “a thought”, according to a report by Focus Taiwan.
We can use any OS we want. We are able to make things different from our rivals on the second or third layer of a platform. Our strength lies in understanding an OS, but it does not mean that we have to produce an OS.
WebOS? Don’t count on it, although any purchase is possible these days with the mobile space turned upside down. The HTC Sense user interface is seen by the company as a compatibility layer which can hide the underlying OS from the user, at least from the usability standpoint. In the larger scheme of things, the very public mention of buying its own mobile software should not be interpreted as a voice of support for non-Google software, at least for now.
After all, the vast majority of the handsets HTC is selling today run Google’s Android software. That being said, there’s nothing unusual with HTC seeking alternative solutions for the future. The company used patents Google obtained from its Motorola acquisition to sue Apple and gain some leverage in its ongoing litigation with the iPhone maker. If Apple prevails in court, HTC’s Android strategy could come into question as the royalties will likely hurt profits and slim margins.
