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Android Businesses Technology

HTC, Once a Top Smartphone Maker, Had a Terrible 2019 (techcrunch.com) 43

Posted by msmash from the things-not-working-out dept.
The once-king-of-the-hill smartphone vendor, which had a terrible 2018, continued to bleed last year, according to financial disclosures it made on Monday. From a report: HTC reported revenue of 10,015 million TWD ($333 million) in 2019, down 57.8% from 23,741 million TWD ($789 million) it posted the year before, and whopping 87% below over $2 billion it grossed in 2017. As Bloomberg columnist Tim Culpan pointed out, Apple now generates more from selling AirPods in a fortnight than HTC clocks from selling each of its offering in a year. The drop in revenue comes as the Taiwanese firm scales back its smartphone business -- a sizable portion of which it sold to Google two years ago -- and focuses on virtual reality headsets and accessories. HTC has yet to disclose how much money it lost in the quarter that ended in December, but in the other three quarters last year, it lost 7.05 billion TWD ($234.4 million).
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HTC, Once a Top Smartphone Maker, Had a Terrible 2019 More

HTC, Once a Top Smartphone Maker, Had a Terrible 2019

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  • An 87% drop in revenue is not good news no matter what business you're in.

  • Used to have an HTC phone many years ago. Back then it seemed like they were releasing a different named phone every month. total confusion with the differences between them.

    Apple had the iPhone. Samsung Galaxy incremented the model number every year. easy to tell which one was the best one and which one to buy for bragging rights.

    • Good point, but I will also add that HTC has always been a "me too" phone maker. Unlike Samsung and Apple, which control some key components (SoC, displays, OS) HTC has always been just another phone maker. They used the same qualcom SoC as everyone else, sourced the displays from wherever they can just like any other component. The problem in this sector is that anybody else can do it. And now they have been replaced by Huawei and other Chinese makers because in this game who ever can make the cheapest pho

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        For a while they made phones with half the pre-installed non-removable garbage as Samsung. I really hoped they would survive just based on that.

        • it's not as if their Sense UI was any good. They should have just kept to stock Android and couldn't have done worse.

      • The ironic thing is that HTC was making phones long before Samsung and Apple were even eyeballing the phone business. They had very good Windows Mobile devices. To boot, they have always allowed bootloader unlocks, which are something that are rare with phone makers these days. I have always been happy with their products.

        The problem I see is that no US phone maker is carrying their stuff, for reasons unknown. This is one of the reasons their devices are not selling.

        • they were indeed an early player in the game. They had the first Androids too. And some of the best Windows Phones. But they had nothing which couldn't be copied for cheaper by the other phone maker next door.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Ranbot ( 2648297 )

            they were indeed an early player in the game. They had the first Androids too...

            My first smart phone was the HTC Incredible (Android). It was great and fast initially, but the most "incredible" thing about it was it's memory leak. By the end I had uninstalled almost every app and the phone was still telling me I was out of storage space. I didn't buy another HTC phone after that. A friend of mine had the same bad experience with the HTC Incredible, and it drove him to the iPhone/Apple where he stayed forever onward. I'm sure HTC had some other good products, but one poor product can de

        • I'm a bit sad over HTC going down the drain. I had their S730 which was pretty late in the WM game (I liked it well enough but really should've gone with the touch TyTN), and then the original Desire [gsmarena.com] which was what, the second Android device after the original Droid? Both were very solid devices despite the somewhat clunky platform but it's not like there was anything else.

          Thinking back, there wasn't really much choice, there were maybe 3-4 companies making WM or Android devices at the time. Now everyone ca

      • Untrue. Companies may start out making "me too" products, but they either adapt or die. OnePlus is a good example - offering reasonable prices for high price features, and now offer features exceeding the "big guys" for still far less money.

        HTC hasn't done anything unique or differentiating since they appeared on the scene 8 years ago or so. There is a market for cheap "me too" devices, but it is a shrinking one. LG and Motorola are discovering this too.

        • HTC hasn't done anything unique or differentiating since they appeared on the scene 8 years ago or so.

          They did. They did 3D phones, Facebook phones with square display, etc. They were often the first to release a new technology (like LTE) even when it wasn't ready (huge battery drain) or useless.
          The problem is they never had any vision.

      • You make very good points. But, your last statement struck me as ironic:
        "This is very good for the consumers but not for HTC, it seems."

        Your logic is correct, and in a proper free market it would be true, but the perversion here is that this is not good for consumers. It would be good, as you imply, if "anybody else can do it", which they can in principle - just assemble stock components and sell them, either cheaper or with distinctive features.

        In this market though, the big players get bigger by nefario

    • The naming was very confusing. HTC Desire S and HTC Inspire were the same phone, just different carriers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        That was the least of the problem, from my perspective the problem was more the matter of bloatware and inability to replace battery on the later models.

        Now I have a CAT S61, and that's really good because it don't come with bloatware like Facebook app.

  • With their Sense ui skin. Haven’t used them since the HTC Sensation back in 2011.
  • Not sure how much valuable IP HTC owns but reminds me of Motorola crash. Motorola had a fair amount of IP that Google acquired and Lenevo a Western brand. Not sure what is keeping HTC going. Scale is a factor to be competitive.

    • Not sure what is keeping HTC going

      Cash reserves, loans, and selling off the few bits of value.

      They've been circling the toilet for the better part of a decade. They occasionally recovered some money by selling off pieces of the company, but it's surprising they're still around.

      They had a massive "restructuring" layoff in 2012 after losing a bunch of money fighting Apple and Samsung, then fought a bunch of FTC and ITC legal complaints, another restructuring layoff in 2016. They tried (but failed) to get in bed financially with Microsoft for

  • I would've continued to buy em.

  • HTC doesn't do security updates (Score:3)

    by dstyle5 ( 702493 ) on Monday January 06, 2020 @12:08PM (#59592188)
    I bought a U11 several years ago. Since I bought the phone I think I've had 3 security updates. HTC seems to have thrown in towel on supporting their customers. They updated my phone to Android 9 in the summer, but they don't update security patches at all anymore. Worst phone purchase of my life. Needless to say I bought a different phone that actually getting security updates. HTC is pure garbage. I think my U11 is still on the July 2019 security update, thanks garbage tier HTC.

    • Considering that HTC sold off the bulk of their smartphone business to Google, maybe Google should be supporting your phone. But probably they just don't have the resources to offer support anymore.

      For all the benefits that multiple vendors in a space provides, this is also the downside risk: the company you backed loses the race to the bottom and effectively goes out of business. But your upside is that there are plenty of new, cheap entries onto the market that make much better phones now than HTC ever di

  • Of course their revenue was down, they didn't release a flagship phone this year. They need to release a phone that has comparable or better specs to other flagship phones for people to be interested in them, not just the mediocre ones.

  • HTC should stop copying others and go back. My second smartphone was a mytouch 3g slide, and no phone since has been as functional as it.

    It had a removable battery, a keyboard, and real buttons. The only thing I didn't like about it was the lack of a headphone Jack (you had to buy a dongle) and it was on the small side compared to today's phones, but these are both issues that are easy to take care of.

    • First smartphone I ever bought was a MyTouch 3g, but this article just reminded me that HTC even still exists. They don't have anything to differentiate themselves, or name recognition, or even headphone jacks? Aim for a niche or something. Sheesh. Big battery? Small phone with a decent processor? Sliders?

  • Was pretty happy with a mid-level HTC back around 2013, but they didn't update the OS at all, and started to feel really slow, otherwise would have bought another.

    Been quite happy with my Motorola G4+, still feels relatively modern and holding up well despite being a few years old, and got pushed up to 8.1 which keeps it fairly relevant. Will be happy to get another Moto next.

  • All smartphones look alike and have the same feature set. Why the hell would anyone care about HTC these days?

    They could come out with a six inch Desire-Z but that would make the phone too thick and everyone wants it as slim as possible *cough*Bullshit*cough*Galaxy Fold*cough*

    I'm buying Xiaomi currently. Less scandal than Huawei and pretty good price to performance ratio. I can't even tell the difference between it an a Galaxy S23 or whatevs by looking at it...

  • These Rectangle glass smart phones which are more like Smart Cameras (as the last thing we do with devices is make phone calls) I feel have more or less peaked, in the past 2 years. Being that the iPhone 11 is out Probably better called the iPhone 9. Isn't really enough to entice iPhone 6 users to switch off after nearly 6 years of advancements.
    The Android Market is robust with a lot of competition having a product covering most price points from budget to premium models.
    I feel the industry has more or les

  • But it took a LOT to drive me off... They finally succeeded.

    My cell phones were, in order, an Oki 9something bag phone, NEC something brick, Soy Ericsson t637 (fabulous), and Blackberry 705t (not bad).

    Then an HTC/TMobile G1, first Android. Took a few software updates to get Bluetooth working, but I waited. It was fabulous. I patched, updated, and rebooted my mail/web server on that phone, pressed against the cafeteria window, clinging to a 3G connection. Oh ya, halcyon days, and I still have that phone in a

  • I had their phone what maybe 10 years ago? It was as good as an iPhone back then. Basically all they had to do what's keep improving their camera and they would have been as popular as Samsung is but instead they went after the low end market, cutting costs where they should have been making improvements and charging more. It is insane to me that they pivoted away from phones and into VR rather than focusing on phones. Strange how they still have the best VR platform and charge the most but feels like litt
  • Back in the year 2010 I bought a shiny new cellphone from HTC. Mysteriously maybe two weeks later the screen developed a crack down the middle. No dropping or anything like that. I called their support and they steadfastly refused to provide any kind of solution insisting that their manufacturing process was flawless and there was no way any of it was their responsibility. I hope that the whole of their customer service vertical is perpetually unemployed and that any phone they touch cracks into a thousa
  • Two HTC phones. The first one failed after two days. They sent a second one and it was DOA. He really liked Android but that soured him and he has been an IOS guy since. I think it was wrong to blame Android, but ....whatever. The HTC phones looked really cool too.

  • So, HTC had some super interesting hardware back in the Windows Mobile days. They self-branded for years; any devices that kept the carrier's name (e.g. "T-Mobile Dash" or "Verizon VX6800"), that was all HTC.

    My favorite form factor of theirs was the Rhodium, aka the Touch Pro2. It was a slider phone, with the most comfortable keyboard that wasn't made by Blackberry. It was certainly thick by today's standards, but it was comfortable to hold. It's certainly dated by today's standard (500MHz single core CPU,

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