Following the announcement of the HTC Desire 12s, Darren Chen, the Taiwanese company’s president, has said that the company plans to focus on the HTC U12+ flagship line-up while also releasing new mid-range devices going into 2019. HTC hasn’t been in a great place in recent years, with revenue declining year over year. While we don’t know how well the company has done this year, their attempts at breaking into a niche with the blockchain-powered HTC Exodus 1 have been interesting from an outside perspective. Chen said that the Exodus 1 has been a success, adding that they sold out entirely after only launching earlier this month.
Some of this should come as no surprise, given that we knew that the company did not plan on giving up on smartphones just yet. They’re definitely re-evaluating their mobile strategy, but HTC as a brand is here to stay. The company’s smartphones may not be doing well now, however, according to Chen, their VR division is doing very well. Their sales have gained momentum in recent months, thanks to the release of the HTC Vive Pro and the standalone HTC Vive Focus. Companies like Valve have also been pushing their VR headsets for gaming. The company also plans to put more effort into their Viveport VR app store, which would see it turn into a platform similar to the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.
The Taiwanese tech giant has had a hard time, but their future doesn’t look entirely bleak. It would seem that they are aware of their higher prices turning people away from their smartphones, and the solution to that is to focus on cheaper mid-range devices. The HTC U12 Plus and the HTC U12 Life were released this year and didn’t do all that well given their higher than average price for simply being mid-range smartphones. However, if the company can recognize its mistakes and fix them, we could see the revival of the once ubiquitous HTC brand.
Source 1: Digitimes
Source 2: Commercial Times (in traditional Chinese)
0 comments:
Post a Comment