It’s no big secret that HTC has suffered a pretty disastrous run over the past twelve months. Starting with the announcement of their flagship One M9 handset at last year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC), the Taiwanese tech company’s profits have plummeted throughout most of 2015. While a large part of that blame goes to lackluster sales of the One M9, which received a mostly lukewarm reception from both critics and fans, it’s not the only factor. The M9’s failure only exacerbated the financial problems of a company that’s struggled for years to reassert itself in the high-end smartphone marketplace, and the financial news only continues to worsen as the company tries to move forward.
HTC posted their most recent February revenue numbers on their website, and the results don’t look very good. According to the site, the company generated about NT$4.20 billion in revenue for February of 2016. For those of you unfamiliar with the exchange rate for NT$ (which stands for New Taiwan Dollar), Google’s currency converter equates that figure with roughly 129 million US dollars. The website’s financial data extends to the past ten years of the company’s existence, and these most recent numbers represent the lowest revenue they’ve ever generated for the month of February, with the company’s previous record low for that month coming nine years ago in 2007. As if HTC’s abysmal financial numbers weren’t bad enough, they also represent a pretty steep decline over last month’s numbers, with revenue decreasing by over 35% when compared to January. The year-over-year numbers are even worse, suffering a decline of nearly 55% when compared to February of 2015.
Despite HTC’s terrible numbers, the company isn’t completely without hope. They’re rumored to unveil the brand new HTC 10 handset sometime in the coming months, and depending on the device’s reception, it could help curb some of HTC’s recent revenue woes. Additionally, the company is set to launch their brand new Vive VR headset this May, and according to HTC, the device has already seen a very large number of early pre-orders. Despite those upcoming launches, the company still faces a very steep uphill climb as it tries to reestablish itself as a preeminent force in mobile technology.