Things are about to get tough for troubled mobile phone maker, HTC. It has been a while since the Taiwanese company started losing ground on the smartphone market. And this decline is now set to significantly expand next year.
It appears that the company is having a torrid time making a name for itself in the midrange sector and this is negatively impacting business, particularly in important markets like China.
Some new forecasts are just out — and they paint a very unflattering picture.
A Morgan Stanley report projects that HTC will only manage to ship 3.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter of the year, which amounts to a drop of 4 percent from the previous quarter.
But things will only take a turn for the worse from there on.
Next year, sales could go down by as much as 33 percent, hovering around a total of some 14.5 million units total for 2014. When taken in context with other large handset makers like Apple, Samsung and Nokia, this is dire situation indeed for the Taiwanese company.
And one that ultimately also has an effect on the Windows Phone ecosystem.
HTC is said to be eagerly looking at ways to reduce the cost of smartphones going forward in order to help maximize profits. How much this new strategy pays off remains to be seen, but the scenario just goes on to show just how volatile and unforgiving the mobile market is.
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Serves them right for not being more dedicated to being a player in Windows Phone. It’s their own fault. They didn’t push their Windows Phones. They didn’t even really put enough movement behind their Android phone, which was arguably the best out there.