HTC has been struggling ever since they had to turn things around after a sizeable drop in sales during 2012. Despite reducing the number of products on sale during 2013 and 2014, this year was clearly one where HTC didn’t know where they were heading. With a change of leadership at the top, it’s still unclear how HTC plans to turn things around, but it is starting to look more and more likely that the company won’t be able to climb back up the ladder they once shared with Samsung years ago. Signs of further downsizing continue, and there’s news this week that the company has sold one of their factories to another big player.
As CTimes is reporting, HTC is to sell a large plot of land, including the factory found there, to Inventec for just NT$6.06 billion which works out at $183.46 million US. This might seem like a large amount of money, but for someone like Inventec, a company that enjoys revenues upwards of $8 Billion US it’s a small price to pay. The plot of land in question appears to be the Taoyuan City Factory which was once responsible for around one-fifth of HTC’s manufacturing. It was closed for a period after 2013’s poor sales figures, and it’s unlikely that HTC found much need for it afterwards. This, along with other measures taken by HTC throughout 2015 should ensure that the company is spending less money, but whether or not this leads to better sales and profit is unclear.
Inventec is a firm that counts some of the biggest names in the industry as their customers, such as HP, Acer and Amazon. They are one of the many firms behind the scenes, manufacturing hardware and devices to be branded by others, and were responsible for Amazon’s Kindle Fire line of tablets. While Inventec are presumably going to make good use of their new factory, it perhaps won’t be that big a difference to their overall output. Needless to say, the signs that HTC continue to struggle just keep coming and it’s unlikely that 2016 will be their year to return to the top, but here’s hoping they have something to show off next Spring during Mobile World Congress to give Samsung and others something to worry about.