When we talk of HTC these days, it’s sad that we have to talk about them and their financial troubles. I’ve been a big fan of HTC in the past and my current smartphone came form the Taiwanese company, however, it’s easy to see there are areas in which the company has let themselves down. The One Series of phones were supposed to be a way for HTC to streamline the company’s offerings but the company was back to old tricks soon enough with a number of phone releases outside of the One Series. The main reason that HTC looked strong at the beginning of the year was down to the One Series, which quickly became another PR stunt with the US getting the same carrier exclusive offerings such as the EVO 4G LTE and now the Droid DNA. This isn’t to say that those phones are bad – far from it – but, if Samsung can launch their phones with their brand intact across the four major carriers, then why can’t HTC?
Here at Android Headlines we’ve been following closely with how HTC are doing and what they might consider to change their course that seems to be heading deeper into the red. We’ve been thinking for some time now whether or not some kind of internal shake up at the company would be beneficial as whatever it is they’re doing, isn’t working well.
It seems that is just what’s going to happen, as the company has now announced that they’re bringing in a new Chief Marketing Officer, in order to double down on their marketing strategy. The new CMO – Benjamin Ho – will report directly to HTC CEO – Peter Chou – and at the moment it’s unclear how things will be affected. There’s word that Ho has already been set his first assignment, which is being dubbed internally as “marketing 2.0”. HTC have said that the shake up will take HTC “into its next phase of brand marketing and awareness”.
The company’s marketing strategy is certainly something that HTC need to do something about, Samsung are killing it when it comes to marketing and when the One X had launched there were signs of brilliance from HTC but, these soon flashed away. Meanwhile, their Korean rival has kept it up and the Galaxy S III – a comparable phone to their flagship the One X+, and a phone that cannot match the Droid DNA – continues to be a success both globally and across the US. I’m interested to see what HTC will make of 2013 and whether or not they will have the steel to keep it going throughout the entire year unlike 2012, during which they started out strong and ended up just like 2011 which was arguably the company’s worst in their history.
You can read a statement from HTC below:
“We welcome Benjamin to HTC and look forward to integrating the global marketing capabilities he brings to the company,” said Chou in a statement. “Our growing brand, centered around our world-class innovation and design capabilities, will provide a global platform not just for HTC, but for Taiwan culture and innovation.”
[Source: TechCrunch]