With its smartphone business facing a precipitous decline over the past few years, Taiwanese tech firm HTC has now reported its worst revenues in 11 years. According to reports coming out of Taipei City, the company’s December 2016 revenues dipped 16.4% to a five-month low of NT$6.41 billion (US$199.96 million) in a year when its overall revenues topped out at just NT$78.16 billion (US$2.45 billion). That is in stark contrast to its 2011 revenues when the company, still basking the glow of popular devices like the EVO 4G, racked up revenues of NT$465.7 billion (US$14.58), making it the best year financially for the Taiwan-based smartphone vendor. With those glory days firmly behind HTC, the company recorded a loss of NT$2.18 (US$0.07) per share in the third quarter, and is expected to report a similar loss for Q4 on revenues of NT$22.2 billion (US$700 million).
HTC’s stock has been battered down severely over the past couple of years because of the ongoing problems with its smartphone business. With the company’s virtual reality headset, the HTC Vive, also trailing its leading competitors as per recent reports, the Taiwanese firm will have its hands full this year trying to claw its way out of a situation that’s seemingly going from bad to worse. With the losses expected to keep piling up on falling revenues, Q4 2016 is now expected to be the seventh straight loss-making quarter for the company that was once instrumental in kick-starting the popularity of Android smartphones with devices like the Hero and the EVO 4G. The company’s stock price edged lower by 0.76% on Tuesday to close the day at NT$78.60 (US$2.46) on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
It will be interesting to see what HTC has planned for 2017, given that the HTC 10 didn’t exactly set the sales charts on fire last year. With companies like Samsung and Apple dominating the premium-end of the smartphone market and a multitude of Chinese vendors squeezing it out of the mid and entry-level segments, HTC has its job cut out trying to make a successful comeback as one of the prominent smartphone vendors in the world. The company does have a few devices up its sleeves for release this year, including the HTC X10 and the HTC C Ultra, so it will be interesting to see how consumers receive those two smartphones.