Oh HTC. It’s sad that a company with truly great hardware is heading down the same path as RIM did. (Hasn’t that sloppy mess flatlined yet?) HTC announced its monthly sales for October and the news is quite abysmal to say the least.
In 2011, the vendor sold NT$44 billion ($1.5 billion) worth of smartphones. 2012 is a dramatically different story: sales are down to NT$17.2 billion ($588 million.) There isn’t much time left in the year and the company is 14 percent short of its earlier guidance. Not only are the year over year statistics pretty embarrassing, but the revenue is falling at a staggering rate even month after month.
Ouch.
The biggest saving grace for this year will be the holiday shopping season, which has already kicked off here on IntoMobile. HTC will have a prime chance to show off its latest Windows Phone devices: the Windows Phone 8X and 8S. Windows Phone 8 already looks favorable and with HTC’s hardware thrown in, the phones should certainly be pretty solid.
The problem is Windows Phone has failed to catch on with mainstream consumers in the same way that Android and iOS have. HTC already lost yet another attempt with Android earlier this year with the One X and One S. Samsung is another obstacle to climb over. Since Samsung has established itself as the primary alternative to an Apple iPhone, HTC needs to give consumers a good answer to the question “Why should I buy this HTC device over this Samsung one?”