This probably won’t come as a huge surprise, but HTC is expecting its revenue and profits for Q4 this year to be even lower than before, continuing a declining revenue trend for HTC. In Q4 last year, the company made $2 billion in revenue, and $34 million in profit, while this year, they expect to make only around $1.5 billion or less, and probably no profit at all, since they didn’t make any last quarter either, and in fact they lost $103 million.
With the bad reception of the HTC One Max, and HTC One getting a little old for a flagship this year, it’s not surprising HTC won’t make a lot of money this quarter. Things probably won’t get any better in Q1 2014 either, as they usually release their flagship in Q2. I’m not sure any sort of flagship could save them anymore, though, even if their next one is declared the phone of the year, by far. What will matter even more is for them to actually be able to promote that great product, which they could barely do last year, and it’s going to be even harder next year, when they aren’t making any profits anymore.
HTC’s Peter Chou has taken a lot of bad decisions lately, that I think outweigh any of the good decisions he may have taken, regarding the HTC One. He’s clearly not able to save the company on his own, but at this point I’m not sure even a new CEO could save it. HTC may just have to sell itself to a company with huge cash reserves, that can help them make the ideal product that they want to make, and then promote it all over the world, to make it an iconic product that everyone lusts after. Even with a terrific product, I don’t think it’s going to matter without a huge marketing budget.
Lenovo has already shown interest in acquiring them, and Lenovo is now the biggest PC maker in the world, so they’re doing pretty well on the cash side. They may not be the ideal buyer for HTC (I think Asus would be), but if they buy them out, put someone else in charge of the HTC division, and give them all the money they need to promote their product lines, something good may come out of it.