HTC Hoping Focus On Budget Smartphones Will Bring Profit In 2014

It is certainly no secret that Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC has been going through tough times in the past few years. 27 consecutive months of falling year-on-year revenue have seen HTC squeezed out of the mobile market by Samsung, Apple, LG and other vendors. HTC’s latest announcements showed that January sales for 2014 slid a staggering 38% compared to a year earlier. Total sales were just $356 million for HTC in January 2014.

Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Mawston claims HTC’s decline has been rapid; having 10% of the smartphone market two years ago to just under 2% today. The latest news from the AFR reveals HTC has finally come up with a plan to reverse its ailing fortunes. Unsurprisingly HTC is hoping to climb out of its financial abyss by expanding its product lines in the budget and mainstream market segments. No longer will HTC try and compete with the likes of Samsung and Apple in the high end smartphone market but instead it will be taking on its rivals in the less glamorous budget market segments. It is well known HTC has invested a lot of time and money into the HTC One series of phones with minimal sales success and so a change in strategy is needed.

“The problem with us last year was we only concentrated on our flagship. We missed a huge chunk of the mid-tier market,” said co-founder and chairwoman Cher Wang, speaking to Reuters in an interview in New York last week alongside Mr Chang.

Do HTC have what it takes to turn their own fortunes around? Only time will tell…

Image courtesy of HTC