In short: HTC usually starts a new calendar month by putting out a very short press release with its revenue for the previous month. And once again, HTC has hit a new low for revenue. It brought in NT$1.26 billion for the month, or about $40.8 million USD. That’s down from the $45 million USD of revenue it brought in during the month of August. Which means that HTC has hit a new financial low. For the entire year (January through September), HTC has revenues of NT$19.61 billion, or about $635 million USD. That is not a good sign for HTC, especially after it debuted the U12 Life at IFA in September.
Background: For the past few years, HTC has really struggled to stay afloat. After it had its biggest year in 2010, where it was one of the largest smartphone makers – ahead of Samsung – it has slowly been dropping down to being one of the smallest now. HTC has tried numerous things to get the smartphone business back on track. Going from releasing over 90 different smartphones in 2011, to releasing just a handful now, and only two so far in 2018. HTC has even dropped down to a Tier 2 smartphone maker, which makes it tougher for HTC to get components from partners like Qualcomm, MediaTek and Samsung. In the smartphone world, no manufacturer is actually making money on smartphones, except for Samsung and Apple. However, what is keeping others like Motorola and LG afloat, are the other businesses they have. For LG, its TV business is doing really well, and Motorola is owned by Lenovo who is in the top two of PC makers right now.
Impact: Keep in mind that these are unaudited numbers for HTC for the month of September, so these numbers could change, but it’s unlikely to change by much. These are also just revenue numbers, so profit will be a bit different, and it’s possible that HTC’s profit will still be in the red. HTC just announced its previous quarterly results on August 6, so it likely won’t be until November when we see their next quarterly earnings.