It looks like HTC's explosive growth over the last six quarters is coming to an end. Due to strong competition from Samsung and Apple (as well as the global economic downturn), HTC has cut its sales forecast for the fourth quarter by 23 percent, with the company now predicting revenues that will match last year's performance. While it hasn't been the best week for the number one smartphone maker in the US, six consecutive quarters of growth represents a tremendous success for a brand that had a fairly minimal US presence less than three years ago.
HTC growth stalls, Q4 sales forecast cut by 23 percent
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That is really good for them considering they still haven’t highered a new Design team or Battery improvement engineers….
I’m just tired of seeing the exact same NEW HTC phone come out every 2 weeks.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 10:44 AM EST reply Recommend (19) Flag actions
I’ve also grown tired of their similar design reference and weak battery tech. And Sense is not winning over hearts and minds…
Surprised Beats isn’t really helping their numbers.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 10:52 AM EST reply Recommend (4) Flag actions
because the alternative to beats is flat eq or “music how the artist intended” :\
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 10:55 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Because Beats is BS?
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 3:43 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
your just pissed because you cant aford it.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 6:37 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I can’t afford to use hundred dollar bills as toilet paper either.
Fortunately I don’t think doing so would improve my life in any way.
Like beats.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 10:24 PM EST reply Recommend (3) Flag actions
Call me when you get a REAL headphone such as the Beyer T1 or PS1000
I don’t think the Beats are even manly enough to match up with the M50 or the Hd25 at half the price. Funny thing about the HD25 is that its all over sportscasts but the athletes are dumb enough to be using beats instead
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 10:46 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Really. There is nothing great about Beats. There are much much better headphones out there. It’s for the design and brand and okay sound.
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 5:27 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Kinda a dumb comment when you consider that the Samsung Infuse, Galaxy S2, Skyrocket, and Focus s are the exact same chassis. HTC at least throws in different shapes, backs, resolutions and features.
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 3:05 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
beats? snakeoil for consumers.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 10:51 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
So HTC needs something to set themselves apart from the competition, Samsung and Motorola are getting more popular and popular. Beats isn’t really going to drive people to buy their smartphones, let’s face it people have iPod’s for that.
I suggest buying webOS, and I suggest this on my illogical reasoning and longing for HTC hardware with webOS software.
Do it.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 10:59 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I would have loved to see WebOS on HTC but we are a year or so too late for that.
Time for the SenseOS fork to take off?
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 11:07 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
The resurection of WebOS would be good for competition but then Nokia killed off Swipe in favour of being Microsofts bitch and that looked awesome http://swipe.nokia.com/
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 11:20 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I totally disagree. HTC has no use for WebOS, with the exception of patents. HTC’s main market is mid-range smartphones for the masses. There are 3 phones I see at my company, Galaxy, iPhones, and HTCs. With iPhones and the HTC android phones dominating. 300+ blue-collar workers, who a year ago didn’t own a smartphone.
I’m happy with my Desire Z/G2 but I have it rooted. I have better battery life than when I first got it with stock Froyo. But it is important to remember that this company generally ships with the smallest battery for the phone. I imagine that is more of a carrier issue.
I especially like Sense 3.0. It is more intuitive than stock Android 2.3, and doesn’t drag my phone down too much like 2.0 did.
Software is doing well with HTC, but I do agree their designs aren’t anything special.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 11:58 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I wouldnt say buying WebOS would be good for HTC but it would be good for the consumer and comeptition
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 5:04 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I think there is going to be a general fall in sales as the recession bites further but I have always said HTC would enjoy terrific growth until the market tightened and then they will have problems competing with Samsung.
Samsung have gone all-out to win market share over profit and they have sales and manufacturing volumes to be able to undercut anyone.
HTC need to be able to differentiate themselves so they can charge a premium. It will be hard to do that now.
A pity.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 11:05 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Samsung hasn’t gone all out to win market share. They are still making huge profits from their phones, second only to Apple. The difference is that Samsung is innovating faster than HTC, and they are doing a good job of staying in step with (cough, copying, cough) Apple.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 3:58 PM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
They’re pushing pretty hard as this graph from Asymco demonstrates.
What you’re seeing here is how Average Selling Price has changed for different vendors against percentage smartphones in their handset business. HTC is pure smartphones of course, and has the highest ASP of any Android OEM. It’s pretty convincing from this that Samsung’s smartphone ASP is far lower than HTC’s. How much of their smartphone profits are really coming from components is unclear.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 6:29 PM EST reply Recommend (3) Flag actions
Took me a while to figure that graph out but, yes, exactly. Samsung has moved from shifting dumphones to shifting only slightly more smartphones+dumphones (about 10% more against an overall rise of 11.2% in all phone sales) and are not making a hell of a lot more money off it.
Surprised how close RIM and HTC are.
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 4:27 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
The barrage of low-end Samsung smartphone hints that they want marketshare. Which matters if you run an OS that other manufacturers run.
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 5:28 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I saw an ad for an HTC which vibrates to music, way to innovate and kill battery life.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 11:21 AM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
Oh well sorry HTC because 3 BILLION dollars in sales is something to be sad about. /s
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 12:15 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
The last HTC phone I was remotely interested in was the original Evo 4G.. a year and a half ago.
They got complacent with their sales and stopped trying.. There’s still time to fix it though.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 12:37 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
This news isn’t surprising to me. Take a look at the “Who’s still rocking the EVO 4G” thread. Just about everyone who owns an EVO is planning on buying the Galaxy Nexus! HTC can’t rely on the “my first smartphone” market forever. Eventually, HTC will need to focus on getting existing customers to replace their current HTC devices with new HTC devices to sustain their position. HTC is in a weird spot right now.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 1:20 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I really think the Rezound is a sweet phone and it has the best screen on the market. I agree with alot of the above comments about battery life and design but let’s face it the Galaxy Nexus doesn’t have great battery life either and it gets piss poor scores, IMO, on GLBenchmark. Now the whole Beats audio thing is crap and you can disable it and I look forward to seeing how fast ICS will be on the Rezound. I really think the Galaxy Nexus is overhyped. It looks like a solid phone but so is the Rezound.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 2:38 PM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
The Rezound is a great example of the problems HTC has, not that it’s a bad device but consider. The screen on the Rezound is truly excellent, but it’s essentially the iPhone-4 screen scaled up. Samsung has access to high resolution (albeit PenTile) AMOLED, which looks qualitatively different.
Now as it happens I think that the screen on the Rezound is using a superior technology, but that doesn’t mean it’s not in a tougher place in terms of marketing. Tbe toughest place in the smartphone market is to be right next to the iPhone.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 2:45 PM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
If the Rezound was coming out with ICS, or even stock Gingerbread with the promise of a very quick upgrade to ICS, I would be tempted. As it’s not the Galaxy Nexus is the only game in town for me.
Although honestly, because I’m an awkward contrary sod who objects to being bullshat upon I would never buy anything with Beats branding, so they’d have to rub off that stupid logo too (which is basically all beats is anyway).
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 3:51 PM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
For me, it isn’t just about screen technology and benchmarks. HTC’s specs are competitive with those offered by the other Android OEMs. Not necessarily equal or superior in all respects, but competitive. For me, the issues with HTC are updates and to a lesser extent, battery life. Both of these issues are (almost certainly) related to their reliance on Sense.
HTC is betting that consumers want Sense and not Android. This was a good bet in 2009-2011 when Android was at 1.x through 2.3.×. Prior to ICS, Android was spartan. More functional than fun. Now, I want pure ICS because it looks like a grown-up, sophisticated OS. Sense, or any OEM skin for that matter, is a non-starter. Sense is great if you’ve never used an Android smartphone before. But after a year and some change with Sense, I’m done with it. It’s unnecessary, it slows the update process, and it runs in the background (and thus drains my battery).
Not only that, HTC uses Sense as a carrot to get existing owners to upgrade to their latest device. HTC completely nerfed the EVO’s Gingerbread update by withholding Sense 3.0 and pushing Android 2.3.3 instead of 2.3.4 (which ohbytheway are both present on the newer EVO 3D). I’m hip to HTC’s game and I will not support them any longer.
So buy the Rezound. Enjoy the excellent screen. Enjoy Beats. Just don’t get upset when HTC releases a bunch of ICS devices in 2012 and delays pushing ICS to their existing phones (like the Rezound). I’d be willing to bet that whatever form of ICS the Rezound receives in 2012 will be missing features found in HTC’s 2012 models.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 4:35 PM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
Their devices seem boring. It’s time for HTC to release a compelling device to compete with the latest and greatest from Apple and Samsung!
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 2:11 PM EST reply Recommend (2) Flag actions
it seemed like it was just yesterday that htc was the android partner of choice.
now samsung has that distinction, but how long till motorola (google) starts
producing the flagship handset? and when it does things will get interesting.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 3:20 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
To be fair HTC made the choice to move away from Google. They did not want to do the Nexus S and they have been very much pushing the “with Sense” rather than “With Google”
Personnally I think they are right butthey need to do it more.
They have a great reputation for build quality and customer service. Despite some of the bitches on forums, customers like Sense and they have strong CEO and team.
The need to differentiate more so they can justify a premium or they will become just another of Google’s bitches
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 6:59 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
HTC, GET A NEW PHONE DESIGN.
you used to be so cool, you used to know about design and originality…now its all amorphous slab phones and sense UI.
you keep putting out the same phone over and over with minor spec tweaks.
Why not create a NEW phone, one with specs to overshadow the competition? not merely on par with current gen? and plz make it look cool and unique. The Evo is old, so is the design.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 3:53 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I don’t think that’s quite fair. The Amaze at least is a downright beautiful phone.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 3:54 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
What else do you want? They’ve never reused a chassis like Samsung has with the Galaxy S, Infuse, Focus S and Skyrocket..
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 3:14 AM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
As an EVO owner I do feel that HTC has stalled severely in their design. Nothing new has come out of their shop and it’s just regurgitating new iterations of the same.
Make something that stands out
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 4:15 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I loved my HTC Droid Incredible. It was a fantastic phone, when it’s power jack broke off the motherboard, I was heartbroken. I went and shelled out $250 for a Thunderbolt, excited over the possibilities of 4g, only to find that my brand new Thunderbolt was a whole Android version behind the Incredible and to achieve the same experience I’d have to root and install a ROM. The phone’s glass is nearly flush with the edges, making scratches common. The phone is slick, and slips out of the hand easily… I hate my Thunderbolt and wish there was some less-than-expensive way to rid myself of it for a Galaxy Nexus. HTC needs to pick one design philosophy and stick with it, then they need to provide easy upgrade paths for their phones and Android. I’m seriously considering an iPhone.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 5:42 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Those complaining about the HTC phones having the same look. I suguest you take a look at the iphone or even some samsuing phones. That nexus looks the same, just a splash of gloss here and there.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 6:38 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Letting another company do all of your software (and share that software with all of your competitors) leads to functionally interchangable commodity products and a margin-slashing race to the bottom? Who could have guessed!
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 6:47 PM EST reply Recommend (1) Flag actions
Yep. And the company that wins in this situtaion is the one with the lowest cost manufacturing base – Samsung
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 6:24 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
GO KOREA!
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 10:51 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
In all seriousness, it’s about time a new power rises up to replace the States, and Korea is my favorite. Down USA! GO KOREA!
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 10:52 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
They have seemed a little stagnant, haven’t they?
After the original Desire and Nexus One, I lost track. Once the Galaxy SII was released, everything HTC offered seemed a lot less relevant. Hopefully they can reignite whatever spark originally created the Nexus One. I do fundamentally like HTC, and do want them to succeed. They’ve just gotten a bit complacent, I guess.
Posted on Nov 23, 2011 | 11:28 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
I am by no means an expert in shares and such like but a friend of mine who is (works on the Oslo stock exchange) says if a company on Wall St, London or Oslo made such a huge swing they’d be investigated to make sure they weren’t artifically overstating numbers in previous quarters to hike their share price.
Thoughts?
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 6:18 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
There is a ton of speculation that HTC may have been studding the channel this past year to pad their numbers. But that doesn’t sound illegal.
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 10:54 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Uh. Stuffing.
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 10:55 AM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted on Nov 24, 2011 | 4:23 PM EST reply Recommend Flag actions
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