HTC’s revenue generated last month fell to a thirteen-year low amid the company’s restructuring operations, with the firm posting sales of NT$2.61 billion, i.e. approximately $89.16 million. The tech manufacturer never posted lower consolidated sales in the smartphone era, with its last worse result dating back to August of 2004 when it generated NT$2.05 billion, albeit that figure isn’t much weaker when accounting for inflation and changes in currency exchange rates observed in the meantime. The Taipei, Taiwan-based original equipment manufacturer didn’t attempt to explain the result and is only expected to do so as part of its half-year report in July.
The firm has been on a decline for over half a decade now, with its struggles largely stemming from the decline of its smartphone business which has long been overtaken by the likes of Samsung, Huawei, OPPO, and Vivo, as well as some smaller OEMs such as Sony and LG who themselves are struggling to prevent their mobile units from declining or losing money. The culmination of HTC’s issues in the segment recently came in the form of a resignation handed in by its mobile chief Chialin Chang. The development prompted the rest of the company’s management to decide against trying to replace the executive directly, having instead ordered a major corporate restructuring. The move is now seeing HTC’s regional smartphone and virtual reality units being consolidated across the globe, with the firm also announcing some layoffs in the United States.
HTC is now downsizing its smartphone operations as a whole and will release fewer mobile devices in 2018 than it did in previous years. The company managed to secure a financial injection from Google several months back through a $1.1 billion deal that allowed Alphabet’s subsidiary access to HTC’s portfolio and saw some of the phone maker’s engineering talent go to the Mountain View-based tech giant. The company is now trying to revitalize its business by focusing on the Vive ecosystem that’s trying to pioneer VR technologies and is counting on them to become mainstream in the near future, hoping they’ll serve as its next long-term growth generator, especially when combined with the advent of 5G.