HTC didn’t have a great 2015 in terms of sales but the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer is hoping to bounce back this year, especially when developing markets are concerned. As Nikitas Glykas, the president of the company’s Middle Eastern and African division recently revealed to Gulf News, HTC is expecting to sell over two million of its smartphones in these regions by the end of the year. Glykas claims that goal is easily attainable as the brand is currently experiencing a lot of growth in countries like the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia but it remains to be seen whether that positive trend is significant enough to result in 30% more sales in comparison to the company’s 2015 results.
There are two causes behind Glykas’ optimistic prediction and both of them come in the form of new smartphones which are slated to launch in the Middle East and Africa in the coming weeks. Naturally, these two are the recently unveiled HTC Desire Pro and HTC Desire 10 Lifestyle. Namely, the Taiwanese consumer electronics manufacturer expects that this pair of mid-range devices will be a big hit in the developing markets that are plentiful in Africa and the Middle East which is why Glykas felt comfortable enough to predict a record 2016 in terms of regional sales. HTC Desire 10 Lifestyle features a 5.5-inch 720p display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 CPU, Adreno 306 GPU, 2GB / 3GB of RAM, and 16GB / 32GB of internal storage. The Desire 10 Pro boasts a 5.5-inch FullHD display, MediaTek’s Helio P10 CPU, Mali-T860 GPU, 3GB / 4GB of RAM, and 32GB / 64GB of internal storage. Both devices feature mostly plastic casings with some metal accents. All in all, they seem like solid deals for their price tags which will range between $270 and $380 in the aforementioned territories. The HTC Desire 10 Lifestyle is slated for release on Saturday, October 1st while the HTC Desire Pro is expected to launch in mid-November.
Despite having a lot of belief in their latest mid-range smartphones, the HTC president for the Middle East and Africa admitted that the management is somewhat disappointed with the sales of the HTC 10 flagship. Speaking to Gulf News, Glykas said that the HTC 10 sales could have definitely been better.