HTC to harness cheaper phones to turn company around

[Scorpus]

It's no secret that HTC isn't performing too well financially, posting its first ever quarterly loss for Q3 2013 after seeing its market share drop drastically over the course of several years. But the Taiwanese company has an idea of how to turn things around.

Chialin Chang, HTC's chief financial officer, says the company will be focusing more on the lower-end of the price spectrum, and will release a greater range of high-quality devices in the $150 to $300 price bracket. HTC co-founder Cher Wang said that 2013's strategy of "concentrating on our flagship" was ultimately a "problem" that lead to the company missing "a huge chunk of the mid-tier markets".

However, the company's strategy won't be to tackle the "very, very low-end market", leaving that space to fast-growing Chinese OEMs. It also won't completely neglect high-end devices, with a new flagship device set to launch very soon, succeeding the critically-acclaimed HTC One.

For the fourth quarter of 2013, HTC saw another decline in sales, posting NT$42.9 billion (US$1.4 billion) in revenue and profits of just NT$311 million (US$10 million). HTC isn't expecting things to be rosy next quarter either: the company is forecasting revenue around NT$35 billion (US$1.15 billion) for Q1 2014 accompanied by a net loss.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/55613-htc-to-harness-cheaper-phones-to-turn-company-around.html

 

[Fbarnett]

Chialin Chang, HTC's chief financial officer, says the company will be focusing more on the lower-end of the price spectrum

These companies need to fail if they think $300.00 is the lower end. If you can buy a laptop or tablet new for $100.00 to $200.00 no reason to think that a pretty nice phone should be more than $200.00 to $300.00 for a higher end unit

 

[Jad Chaar]

I think the budget sector is crucial to HTC's recovery.