HTC One, a Comeback Attempt That Could Fall Short

Less than two years ago, HTC was the little Taiwanese company beating Apple on its home turf. The onetime contract manufacturer was the top-selling smartphone maker in the U.S. in 2011’s third quarter, taking 24 percent of the market by offering devices at different price points. Two months later, its fall began: The iPhone 4S’s release muscled out HTC, and the company told investors it was cutting revenue forecasts more than 20 percent for a quarter that was already half over.

Apple and Samsung have since led the market with smartphones that consumers will queue up to get. HTC, by contrast, has long sold a line of devices of varying prices and quality to phone companies. With little star power, the company’s share of global phone shipments has fallen by more than 60 percent in the last year and a half, according to market researcher IDC, from 10.3 percent of the market to less than 4.2 percent. On April 8 it reported quarterly profits of just NT$85 million ($2.9 million), a 98 percent drop from the previous year, as the delayed release of its own attempt at a breakthrough phone, the HTC One, hurt sales. The company said on May 2 that it expects revenue to fall 23 percent from the year before. “The market changed, and it was a little unexpected,” Chief Executive Officer Peter Chou says of the consumer shift to branded phones such as the iPhone and Galaxy.