The numbers are in and they’re not good. After showing signs of progress in November, HTC’s revenue for December fell flat on its face. In total, HTC brought in NT$6,517,000,000 – just a hair more than $195 million USD. TO put that in perspective, that’s less revenue that what HTC pulled in during a month when the HTC Magician was released. For those who don’t know, that was December of 2004. December’s disappointing revenue assisted in pulling down HTC’s full-year revenue totals, resulting in a year-over-year revenue decrease of 35%.
HTC has yet to share earnings details for the fourth quarter, but we can’t imagine that report will include any good news. The company has been cutting its work force and selling production factories to reduce overhead costs, but those efforts will not have any impact on the company’s income. HTC is in desperate need of cash and that can only materialize if the company can get its smartphone business back on track.
During CES, HTC unveiled the HTC Vive Pre developer kit and the Under Armour HealthBox which includes an HTC-build fitness band, smart scale and chest-strap heart rate monitor. While HTC and Under Armour are planning to ship the fitness tracking devices in February, it’ll likely take a year or more for consumers to recognize HTC’s products as viable alternatives to what FitBit it offering. Even then, it’s unclear how much of a cut HTC is making off of each device since Under Armour will definitely be keeping a good portion of the profits.
We’re glad that HTC is working to diversify its product portfolio, but the company needs the HTC One M10 to be a massive success if 2016 is going to be a year or recovery.
So … How do you turn THIS around …