HTC releases October 2012 financial report, revenues continue to fall

By Rich Edmonds
published

HTC has released its unaudited October 2012 financial report, which displays a YoY (year-on-year) decrease in revenues of 60 percent. Last month the manufacturer revealed it brought in NT$17.2 billion ($588 million), down from NT$44.114 billion ($1.5 billion) during the same period in 2011. It's not looking rosy for the Taiwanese handset maker, but how can it look to improve?

Revenues of NT$246 billion ($8.4 billion) are reported by HTC for the year to date. The somewhat disappointing news follows figures present in the Q3 report, which was released last month. The company missed its revenue target, experiencing a 48 percent YoY fall in revenue for that quarter.

It's difficult to see how HTC can go on the attack to get out of the down spiral the company is currently in. Its Android army of handsets have been overshadowed by Samsung's success, and Windows Phone is still yet to take off. Caught on a see-saw, we're seeing HTC refresh its partnership with Microsoft to push out the Windows Phone 8X and 8S smartphones.

Utilising Microsoft's Windows Phone 8, the company is offering something new for the platform with unique colours, hardware, and of course its Beats Audio. As well as both the 8X and 8S, HTC will be hoping its One X+ Android offering also performs and is well received by consumers, not to mention the yet-to-be-announced Droid DNA.

We're yet to see how HTC's latest hardware performs, only sales figures and future finance reports will reveal where the manufacturer is heading. We're sure Windows Phone fans would like to see further marketing from the company to push launched hardware, to match Nokia and Samsung's future efforts. If we were to predict anything out of this, we'd say HTC will play a more prominent role in 2013 with its new batch of Windows Phones.

Source: HTC (opens in new tab), via: Android Central

Rich Edmonds
Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.

26 Comments
  • I'd love to see HTC and Nokia collaborating more instead of the bickering to try and steal market from Android and iPhone...
  • I couldn't agree more, but the question is...how? Would they combine their marketing efforst to say that HTC and Nokia's offerings are the best offerings in Windows Phone and the phone marketplace in general? Probably not because they want to hog the spotlight for themselves. Something has to give though if they both want to be successful. 
  • They should do Wp8 phones at all price points and open up in all markets. not just target the avg highend users.
  • The problem with this idea it takes money and loses.  Think about what Nokia is going thru.  They are slowly starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  The issue with HTC they are nowhere near the size of Nokia and can't just bleed money quarter after quarter to "right the ship".
  • Its what Samy did, They have lots of varients of android , very low profile 20£ phones to 450£ phones. so its amazing how they take the market share, even emerging markets all going android, the person who is benifiting is not necessaryly the end user, is a free OS gives you any thing extra to what a non free os gives you, probaly not when it lands in my hand it alreayd has an operating system in it so. end user benifiting from the free OS is rubbish to a degree. but follow the points on loose coupling to vendors, make it a free market to change as you wish with simonly contracts which run cheeper. they could even bring (Bring us the Luminas) (800, and 900) and get 60% of the price.  they do have lots of options open. its just about what they want to do.
  • HTC made a huge, stupid mistake walking away from the feature phone market, which is STILL oer 50% of mobile phone sales, and mid-grade devices. They went all in on premium handsets, and then the loss of profit from the low end market was surprisingly steep. Throw in their overkill on Sense on their Android devices (Gingerbread devices were very buggy with the UI skin slowing it down) and the call reception issues, and you have a streamlined way to kill a company's profits. HTC will rebound. Their devices are showing decent performances on ICS/Jelly bean, and their 8X/8S offerings look very good. It will take longer to recover then to fall (just ask Nokia, BlackBerry, and LG), but they are not going the way of Palm.
  • We need more successful OEM competition, not less. I hope HTC turns it around. I am not an HTC fan, but innovation via competition, always moving tech forward, is good for the end user. I appreciate difference and variety in hardware that allows more choices for users, especially at this point with WP. Good luck HTC.
  • +1
  • The problem with HTC is that for high end phones they end up being pretty cheaply made.. I have had the original evo, evo shift, htc arrive and htc trophy.. They all ended up being decent phones but they were are all cheaply made and not very durable.. Plus with android I HATE sense ui.. I love my trophy but I won't be buying another HTC.. Nokia 822 for me.. Just my opinion
  • ^^^This!!!^^^
    It seems like one of the most important aspects of a phone escapes most phone reviewers. If the phone isn't durable, then all the features in the world don't matter. I have to say, as much as I dislike iPhone 5, the drop test results against Galaxy S III were strong arguments in it's favor. I hope WPCentral conducts some durability tests with these phones as soon as they get their hands on them.
  • Some people would love to have that problem with billions of dollars.. Lol!
  • HTC is loosing market share due to them trying to compete with Sammy on the Android side. WP may help them some but there overall situation is not good as they are basically just a hardware OEM. A one-trick act...
  • WP8 high-end WITH KEYBOARD is their only hope. (well, that's my hope anyway...)
  • Lol keyboard is dead :P
  • but how if u need 2 get things done?
  • They need to learn something from Samsung and Apple!
  • One reason they're in a hole is because they are pricing their devices to high at the moment. They need to undercut the competition like what google is doing to everyone else. 
     
  • Where's the profit? They hit a hot streak last year but Samsung took off. Not sure what their number were before the hot streak happened. 
  • HTC really needs to be more competitive and humble about their pricing strategy. Many people are going to be put off from buying devices from a company that has financial issues becasue there is a certain level of uncertainty surrounding the future existence of the company itself (ie. Blackberry). I hope HTC gets it together. 
  • Nokia's situation is as bad, but the difference is everyone knows Nokia is being very aggressive and "all in". HTC on the other hand seems so "cool" about everything, pricing their phones irrespective of the competition and not giving any focused attention to support. Plus, there is this weird fluctuation with the quality of their phones. They may give out a few good phones with decent battery life but then suddenly it seems some of their products get out without proper quality control. That makes it hard for me to risk and buy anything from them.
  • Are they still profitable?
  • Right. I asked that but still no answer. So I'm assuming it's a yes. 
  • They need to not suck. According to some reviews from sites like Techradar and Phone Arena, the speaker on the 8x sucks even with a power hungry amp and the battery life is mediocre. Combine that with some reviews that say the camera is just as bad as the one on the One X, even with an image chip and F2.0 lens, then you see exactly why they are getting owned.
  • Dear HTC, dear Nokia.
    Merge NOW!
    A Nokia-HTC Corp. would be a formidable force in that business.
  • HTC has nothing to offer to Nokia. (hardware wise)
  • HTC phones generally have really really crappy quality. I don't think they do proper Q/A after they make their phone. Especially with nexus one, which was google's flagship phone, the center button malfunctions within 6 months, and it is quite common problem among nexus one users.
    In other word they lost consumer's trust.