The last smartphone release from HTC came in the month of June as the company launched the HTC U19e. And while you might be making a case for the HTC Wildfire X which launched in August – that particular device does not count as it was not made by a company, rather, by a brand licensee. Both these devices however, have not made any sort of impact.
The latest news surrounding the company currently revolves around its newly appointed CEO, Yves Maitres, who has recently announced that his company is once again looking to make “premium” smartphones.
While the CEO confirmed that his company hasn’t entirely given up on flagship devices, he also acknowledged the fact that HTC has dropped the ball when it comes to smartphones. He said : “HTC has stopped innovating in the hardware of the smartphone. And people like Apple, like Samsung, and, most recently, Huawei, have done an incredible job investing in their hardware. We didn’t because we have been investing in innovation on virtual reality.”
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However, the CEO was also quick to acknowledge that his company hasn’t given up on its smartphone strategy just yet. He stated that HTC wants to make ‘premium’ smartphones for “countries with higher GDP.”
One might argue that such statements bring about the element of vagueness, and that there doesn’t seem to be any spark which ignites confidence in the company’s ever growing struggles in the smartphone market – so much so that the company has actually posted losses for the previous five consecutive quarters, with the last one being Q2 2019.
The company had great success before things took a toll for the worse all the way back in 2011. At that time, the company could boast being the largest smartphone vendor in the US, while it was also the fifth largest smartphone vendor overall in the world. The rise of Chinese brands like Huawei and ZTE, along with intense competition from both Samsung as well as Apple meant that the company has not seen the best of times ever since.
Of course, the company faces an uphill task in getting on top once again. This task is made all the more difficult when you take into account the billion dollar deal that HTC did with Google a year ago when Google acquired upwards of 2,000 engineers and support staff from HTC. With a bit of luck and innovation, there is no reasons why HTC can’t give even the most dominant of companies in the smartphone market the toughest of times – will it – we can only wait and see.
