Many people might say that HTC’s biggest problem has been releasing one flagship a year and sticking with it. Sure, the One X was the 2012 flagship, but six months after launching it, they released the One X+, thus ticking off consumers even further. According to a new report, though, it looks like the manufacturer has still not learned its lesson.
The HTC Butterfly has been very big success in Japan, as well as in the United States, according to HTC’s chief marketing officer Ben Ho. Ho says he believes the large screen is the device’s main reason for success. In fact, Japanesse carrier KDDI says that the device was such a big success that it outsold Apple’s iPhone 5 in December.
On Monday, HTC announced the next-generation Butterfly devices. The manufacturer says it will launch the devices to capitalize on the growing market interest in large form-factors. Details on the next-generation Butterfly were sparse, but Ben Ho did say that it will keep the same Butterfly branding. “We have no plans for the time being to change the name of this series,” Ho told the media.
HTC says that it is struggling to keep up with demand for the Butterfly and was lagging behind as far as 40,000 units.
To me, this is a huge mistake by HTC. The company just announced last week that it can’t keep up with “demand” for the HTC One, so that launch is delayed. Meanwhile, it is 40,000 orders behind on another “flagship” device in Japan. And then today, it announces yet another device that it won’t be able to keep up with the demand. If HTC truly wants to earn the respect of consumers worldwide, then this is the kind of stuff that can not happen. It has struggled more than any major Android manufacturer, but yet it has changed less than anyone. It just doesn’t make sense. The Butterfly was just released on two Japanese carriers on January 20th and 23rd, and HTC has already announced a successor. How mad would you be if you were the new owner of a Butterfly? I’d be furious.
HTC can blame its troubles on anything it wants, but when it comes right down to it, they need to earn the respect of consumers. And this isn’t how you do it.
Source: Focus Taiwan