While Samsung has rocketed to the top of the smartphone industry – particularly when talking Android – companies like HTC have struggled to keep hold. The Taiwanese company continues to make excellent devices like the HTC One (M8), but their marketing has consistently failed to connect with customers and the likes of Samsung have swooped in, swallowing the company’s revenues. Now however, it finally looks as if the company is on the right track to mending what went wrong years ago. The company has released figures for the quarter ending March 31st 2014 and speaks of a return to profit come Q2 of this year.
In the report, HTC reveals NT$33.1 Billion (roughly revenue for the quarter which did, unfortunately, come with a net loss of NT$1.88 billion (roughly $62 Million). We’ve heard these figures before, but the really interesting news comes in the form of the company’s April 2014 figures – which are of course, unaudited – and reveal NT$22.1 billion (roughly $733 million) in revenue. which is a 12% increase from the same time last year and a 36% or so improvement over the previous month (March 2014). This shows that the HTC One (M8) is selling well and HTC is so happy with the progress of their new flagship (as well as their mid-range offerings) that they’re predicting a return to profitability in Q2.
Predicting revenue somewhere between NT$65 billion to NT$70 billion (double the posted results of Q1 2014) HTC is very happy with the customer response to the HTC One (M8), as well as the Desire 816 which is doing well with those looking for a quality mid-range device. The company might not be there yet, but it’s nice to see a great smartphone company like HTC make some progress towards returning to profit. Looking ahead, the company is excited about the “rapid development of TD-LTE in China and LTE in Taiwan” and as we’ve seen today it looks like there’s more on the cards for the One family, with “Prime” and Mini variants said to be on the way.
Ultimately, the company says that they “believe that we are on course for a strong 2014” and we certainly hope that the company can continue to post encouraging figures like these. It’s tough at the top and while Samsung delivers great experiences and offers good consumer choice, competition and variety is always great to see.