It really shouldn’t be happening. HTC make great handsets. The HTC One is, quite simply, brilliant. The HTC One mini is great too, but the Samsung steam-roller has blasted the opposition away with sexy phones and an advertising budget that would make a lottery winner feel poor.
This morning, on a webpage with “Phoenix” in the URL, HTC reported their first ever quarterly loss. This is a company that effectively created this website with the classic Orange SPV. This is the company that, just a couple of years ago, supplied many of the phones that people carried around with them. Now, despite narrowing their range and producing fantastic and thoughtful devices, the opposition are kicking them square in the nuts. HTC made a net loss of 2.97 billion Taiwan dollars, which works out at £62 million over just 3 months. It’s no wonder that they recently sold their remaining Beats share for around £165 million. At this rate, that £165 million will be gone pretty quickly.
HTC shares nose-dived yet again following the news…
Meanwhile, despite doubts that there was no further room to grow, Samsung have exceeded analyst expectations and posted a colossal 10.1 trillion won profit for the last quarter, which is £5.8 billion. Yes, £5.8 BERRRIIIILLIOOON. That’s a 25% increase from last year, and they show no signs of slowing down.