On September 21, 2017, HTC and Google announced that they have reached a formal agreement worth $1.1 billion. According to the agreement, some members of HTC’s mobile device division will join the Google hardware division. At the same time, HTC will retain its own smartphone brand and part team and will continue to launch new products. In the rest of the year, HTC has launched several new products, but none of them succeeded.
HTC claims to not exit the smartphone market
On November 25, Electronic Times said that HTC officially responded to the news that ‘the flagship product plan for the first half of 2019 has been canceled’ and said that it will not exit the smartphone market. However, this not anything new.
Just a few days ago, Phandroid announced that HTC’s U12+ phone released in May this year will become the last flagship machine of this manufacturer. But HTC has responded to this news and said that smartphones are still an integral part of human life, and they also believe that the next 10 years of change will be led by the key technology in VIVEReality. At the same time, HTC also announced that it will introduce different models with different prices and positioning at various consumer groups in response to market changes and demand.
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It seems that this is a clear and informative response, but obviously, this does not dispel the outside world. In fact, as early as November 16, there were some users who discovered that HTC’s latest Snapdragon 845-powered flagship model U12+ has been removed from Tmall and Jingdong, Suning and other platforms, and Lei Feng also found that this product is out of stock on HTC’s official website in China. However, according to the same source, the HTC U12+ is still on sale on HTC’s official website in the US and Hong Kong. In addition, on the official website of China, some models such as the HTCU 11+ can still be purchased.
The HTC U12+ was launched on June 12, and the price was 5888 yuan ($849). During the first two months of the sale, it fell to 5188 yuan ($478).
Behind the pursuit of new business, HTC’s financial pressure is huge
According to HTC’s latest financial report data, HTC’s Q3 operating income was NT$4.04 billion, or about US$130 million. The gross profit margin increased from 2.7% in the previous quarter to 4.7%, while the loss was enlarged compared with the previous quarter, reaching about $84 million. However, in the first three quarters of this year, HTC still achieved a net profit of NT$16.4 billion, mainly due to the $1.1 billion agreement between Google and HTC.
In addition, HTC’s share price continues to fall along with continued losses. Lei Feng.com reported that after the release of the Q2 financial report in 2017, HTC’s share price fell nearly 10%, falling below NT$70. Now more than a year has passed, HTC’s share price continues to fall to NT$41.9. Compared with the highest point of NT$1238.1 on April 1, 2011, it can be said that it is extremely backward.
