HTC profits collapse 70% in face of competition from Apple, Samsung
Facing more intense competition from rivals Apple and Samsung, HTC announced on Friday that its pre-tax profits fell by almost 70 percent.
Total sales also fell by about a third in the first quarter of 2012, according to the Financial Times. The company said the products it launched in late 2011 did not match up well against Apple's iPhone 4S and the Samsung Galaxy Note.
HTC primarily relies on Google's Android mobile operating system for its phones, though it also sells devices running the Windows Phone platform. The company is the No. 3 smartphone maker in the world, behind Apple and Samsung.
HTC's disappointing results arrive as Samsung posted a record quarter with $5.1 billion in profit from $39.8 billion in sales. Samsung's first-quarter profit jumped nearly 100 percent year over year, while revenue increased by 20 percent.
Apple alone controls about 75 percent of the mobile industry's profits, and its next closest competitor is Samsung. Together, the two companies account for 90 percent of industry profits.
HTC officials admitted in February that their company was in the midst of a product transition that would hurt sales in early 2012. They specifically cited Apple's iPhone lineup and Samsung's smartphone offerings in the U.S. as the primary reason.
The smartphone maker also indicated in February that sales of its 4G LTE devices were lower than expected. HTC was one of the first companies to embrace high-speed long-term evolution wireless technology, while Apple recently introduced its first true 4G device, the new iPad, a month ago.
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Comments
It probably wouldn't work because Samsung lacks the software expertise, but it's their best shot of moving into the same league as Apple, and Samsung is the only company in the world that has this opportunity. If Samsung can't seize this window of opportunity, then Apple will be unstoppable.
My guess is that this window of opportunity will stay open for about one more year.
I'm also guessing that Samsung will fail to seize it.
But I am sure some one will spin it in a different way.
Samsung has an opportunity here to become the Apple of Android. Samsung should create its own fork of Android, its own appstore, cloud service, etc.
Samsung: "The Apple for the rest of us"
Secondly, HTC, unlike Samsung, never comes out with real attractive design model that can attract buyers to be excited about, some how i feel all their model design look quite the same as each other ( just look at the picture) in this stroy
Thirdly, I think the marketing and advertise team in HTC are really craps too. They don't seems to have very huge and exciting advertisement or events to catch attention to the consumer. I hardly notice that when they have new models coming out or that particular phone is actually a new model
Samsung does great in trying to come out with design that try to pull iPhone owner over and always have good advertisement, campaign and PR methods to catch attention on their up coming new models. They are even very good as using apple's strong name now and try to like fight law suit or say things bad about Apple products just to catch attaction.
I thing that is why HTC lost out a lot in market share to Samsung, not to even mention Apple
Samsung: "The Apple for the rest of us"
Samsung: "The Apple for the rest of us"
Samsung: "The Apple for the people without taste"
Which goes a long way to prove that the more they copy Apple, the better their chances of prevailing --until they lose in court, that is.
If Apple's legal team are using this as proof to estimate damages, Samsung could end up having to pay Apple a googol dollars.
So the moral of the story; if you want to win copy Apple.
But I am sure some one will spin it in a different way.
I'm glad that Apple aggressively sued Samsung because otherwise that's precisely the lesson companies would walk away with. At least now they have to consider the financial burden in legal settlements for resorting to copy-catting. How much of those profits will Samsung have to pour back into settlements awarded to Apple?
Samsung: "The Apple for the people without taste"
"iOS for for the apple community without talent"
so the claim of "having taste" is irrelevant... 200 dollars does not buy you "taste"
Their phones look like "generic Android phones."
Their branding is a mess: Radar? Vivid? ReZound? You've got to be kidding me. If the average consumer (read: not hard core Fandroid) cannot explain the difference between these phones and their competitors, then HTC will continue to fail.
And yes - I am an Apple zeolet with only Macs, Ipads, and Iphones littered throughout my house.
I just feel Apple needs to make a marked change to their next Iphone's form-factor. 4G LTE to me is a feature I could care less about.
Samsung: "The Apple for the rest of us"
Samsung: "The Apple for the rest of you"
There fixed it for you.
Good. These phone makers that do nothing but throw some open-source software on some cheap plastic and provide minuscule support for them need to go away.
Well, they are using a worthless (free) operating system. That worthless operating system makes their product worthless. hahahaha. I would rather pay a little more and get something that works or provides me with higher level of satisfaction.