The HTC One smartphone
Mid-range handset sales have seen smartphone maker HTC post its first quarterly revenue growth in more than three years.
The high-end smartphone sector is ultra competitive, with Samsung and Apple dominating the scene, so HTC’s performance in the lower tiers is incredibly important to its balance sheet.
The Taoyuan, Taiwan-based company appears to have found a decent balance, with sales of NT$47.9bn up NT$5bn on the same period a year earlier. Net income totalled NT$470m, while operating profit of around NT$180m beat the predictions of analysts, who expected significant losses, according to Bloomberg.
It’s not all rosy at HTC, with overall figures in 2014 showing losses, however, gaining a foothold in the mid-tier of smart-device sales – the company’s new tablet and phones aimed at developing markets, in particular – is a significant boon to its operations.
The entire smart-device industry is a difficult market to operate in. Apple and Samsung dominate at one end and upstarts such as Xiaomi blaze a trail at the other.
HTC has been busy diversifying its range in 2014, and announced a return to partnership with internet search giant Google to produce the Nexus 9 back in September.
Then, in October, HTC launched a new smartphone for selfie fanatics called the Desire Eye, that comes with two 13-megapixel cameras front and back. It also revealed the HTC RE camera that will compete with GoPro.
Last year, it also started selling its own-brand software to other Android devices in a bid to boost revenues. Clearly some, or all, of these decisions have started to pay off.
