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HTC Profits Drop By 79%
An anonymous reader writes "HTC is the world's fifth largest phone maker, but it's starting to feel some serious pressure from giants like Samsung and Apple. HTC's third quarter net income dropped 79% from the previous quarter, and total revenues were down 48%. 'Sales of HTC's flagship One series, which debuted in February, are trailing off as Apple and Samsung spend four to six times more on marketing to ensure the iPhone 5 and the Galaxy SIII dominate the market, while strongly subsidizing their older models ... HTC's share of the global smartphone market by shipments fell to 5.8% in the second quarter from 10.7% a year earlier, according to Bloomberg. The company released its first Windows Phone 8 models in September, its most high-profile pre-Christmas launch, but Microsoft's operating system has yet to establish itself as a serious third player after Google's Android and Apple's iOS.'"
I have trouble faulting a company from Taiwan for disregarding the UN, as the UN insists on disregarding Taiwan.
The HTC Vivid was the last AT&T phone that had a MicroSD slot. The One X variants and subsequent models do not.
Of course, the carriers hate SD slots, because they would rather you eat up all of your data accessing your stuff in the "cloud." Google is also all-to-happy to remove the SD slot for the same reason, because they want to access your data, too, and it's easier for them if you're storing it on their hard drives.
I absolutely will not buy a phone or tablet that does not have an SD slot. If they all stop offering them, I'll just keep limping along on my Inspire until it dies, and then I'll go get a prepaid dumb phone.
Smart phones are fun toys, but they are useless unless I can store my music and videos directly on them.
Maybe HTC should stop making stupid design decisions like a non removable battery and no microSD expansion slot? Owned original HTC Desire and still love it, despite browsing Slashdot on it was soo slow.
Don't worry HTC, those Microsoft phones will get you back in action!
I've bought HTC phones exclusively since Android came out but I've grown tired of all the issues that popup. Plus HTC tends to be douchey about releasing source code and drivers, so my next phone will be from elsewhere.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Change the name of the poorly named HTC EVO 4G LTE to the EVO 5 then advertise it. It stacks up well against the competition, but either people think it's a 2 year old phone or they've never heard of it.
For me, HTC's strength was their continued devotion to physical QWERTY siding keyboards. I'm simply not going to be SSH-ing into a server with a touchscreen.
Two things have sunk this affection. First, HTC (like the rest of the industry) is moving away from physical keyboards. Second, the last QWERTY I got from them crapped out in a really disappointing way. I had a MyTouch 4G slide, also known as the HTC Doubleshot. Really nice phone, decent modding community. The thing is, it's got a design flaw. The flex cable between the front and back halves of the phone failed, causing a whole basket of things to go wrong. When I disassembled the unit, I could clearly see how the edge of a metal bracket was rubbing against the cable every time the phone was opened or closed.
If you've got a HTC Doubleshot, it's just a matter of time before it fails. I'm sure the design engineers recognized this problem but they likely had their fix overruled to save production cost or hustle the unit out the door. Worse, it could have been planned obsolescence, given that the problem manifested a month after the warranty expired.
Meanwhile, my HTC Dream is chugging along with new old-stock units available for $90, and HTC has walked away from the one thing they did better than the rest of the industry .
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
Correct, but I think it was an imprecision on the language rather than an uncertainty.
I've said similar before myself.
There is not enough room on any phone/tablet's built in memory to hold what I want to put on them, but with SD/microSD cards, the usually have enough. Unless you swap the card a lot, you just start to think of it as part of the phone, because you don't have to remove it. And with some phones I've had (looking at you samsuck), I've had to take the battery cover off and even take out the battery in a couple cases, to swap the card. At that point, it might as well be part of the phone.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
woo-hoo! one more thing to carry around.
Not interested. I'll take the onboard card.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
That bit me when I bought an unlocked HTC phone for travelling.
I call it the Islamofacist phone (note: I've nothing against most Muslims I've met, but I do have something against countries that force it on their citizens, and companies that resell such phones as unlocked).
Most of the applications wouldn't work, you couldn't use the app store or install unapproved apps. Most installed apps didn't work except (a) the web browser, oddly enough. (B) A prayer time reminder (that you couldn't turn off, but could set to local or Mecca time), a Koran reader, and similarly themed app.
At that point, why the hell bother with a smartphone?
My first and so far last smartphone is HTC Desire. What a piece of @#$%#!
First, the menu buttons on the bottom stop working after 1 year regular use (3 out of 3 - the phones of myself, my wife and a friend)
Second, and much more frustrating - no system updates. Zero, nada,zip! I am still running Android 2.2 ?!? Their proprietary overlay of Android is utter crap, I have no control over the device (unless I root, but damn it why bother - I should get unlocked phone from the start), I cannot remove shit like Facebook applications, stock market update (WTF?!?) and so on....sometimes the phone just stops responding because it is busy running....itself
Now, I'll admit the above is not necessarily a flaw of HTC only, but come on...Overall I am utterly disappointed by the whole smartphone thingy. I expected a small PC in my pocket and all I got is locked, slow, power hungry piece of shit, that spends 80% of its power running itself... and no, I am not going Apple because of this (different set of crap IMO) but I just might "devolve" to dumb phone again.
New slogan - "dumb phones are for smart people, smart phones are for dummies". Please, spread it around - we just might convince enough people to stop falling for the hype and get those companies in line...oh, forgot boycott does not work in our economic paradigm. Well, forget it...
Apple has the iphone
Samsung has the Galaxy S3
verizon has droids
people know these names. HTC used to release a new phone a month on different carriers under different names with slightly different specs. diluted the brand because people didn't know what they were buying
The problem is HTC hasn't got the word out. Everyone's talking about the Samsung Galaxy S3 and new iphone, but the One X is, IMHO, the best phone on the market right now. The screen alone makes it better than the SGS3 and iphone 5. Also has a very nice camera and never lags. Everyone who sees my phone is like "wow, what phone is that?"
I've also owned the One V, which is a low end phone, but surprisingly feature packed. For the record, I actually like the HTC Sense interface better than vanilla android.
Apple and Samsung spend four to six times more on marketing to ensure the iPhone 5 and the Galaxy SIII dominate the market, while strongly subsidizing their older models...
Oh yeah, if only our competitors did not advertise nor compete on price/features, then we'd be doing great!
HTC make the second best Android phones behind Samsung. If Samsung turn evil or make stupid decisions I don't agree with, I like having HTC there as a backup. I owned a HTC HD2 (no it's not a native Android phone) but the build quality, for the time was fairly good and HTC Sense really isn't that bad. (Then again, I don't hate touchwiz either)
I hear Sony's Android phones aren't shabby but I have a hard time believing a juggernaught like Sony would release timely products or updates. Also LG and Motorola both "not bad" but HTC is definitely, in my eyes #2 - it'd be a shame to see them completely slayed.
I don't follow them too closely but I believe they were continuing to focus on Microsoft based phones which seems, completely foolhardy to me - the sales numbers on those things would be quite miniscule, fingers crossed they remain competitive. (The HTC One X does have a glorious screen, but the lack of removable battery or SD card slot is a no no, the actual design however - for the most part is quite nice looking like the S3)
Might try a keyboard with arrow keys. Hacker's keyboard is a nice one.
Though the keys get kinda small if you use the full 5-row layout in portrait mode, at least on my Incredible S.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
My wife had an HTC phone and I found the Sense UI to be terrible. It slowed down her phone because it was so resource hungry and most of the changes in Sense didn't really add any value, they were just flashy changes meant to impress people. I flashed cyanogenmod and she loved it. I love HTC's hardware, but would never buy one of the phones again unless they improve their awful UI.
It's the same old problem with Taiwanese companies. They're capable of producing a great product but don't quite appreciate the value of consistency and marketing. They don't really define a vision and are too reactive; someone else comes up with a defining product and they rush to match it. Granted, HTC has done better than most. Usually Taiwanese companies flirt with the bottom, trying to offer a feature rich product on the cheap. You get good value but you never get the sense of a committed brand focused on quality. And the Chinese have taken over this space.
Historically, however, Taiwanese companies have had to fend for themselves. South Korean chaebols have enjoyed the benefit of government backing, enabling them to focus quality and design. It created a scenario in which they were able to build global, established brands in a relatively brief amount of time. Who would have taken a Korean brand seriously 15 to 20 years ago? It took Japanese companies closer to 30 years to establish themselves and they didn't have the competition Taiwanese are facing. HTC hasn't yet been able to define themselves as a prestige brand like Apple, or even Samsung to a lesser extent.
I do think HTC has one of the best custom Android skins on the market, superior to anything the Koreans offer.
Doesn't BP stand for British Petrol?
BP dropped that name around the time it rebranded itself in 2001 as "Beyond Petroleum" and replaced the shield with the sunflower. If BP stands for anything, it's "Apis urine", or in layman's terms, bee pee.