HTC's financial situation has been steadily declining for the past few years. At one time, the company was the unquestioned leader of the Android smarphone market as it had a clear competitive edge with its smartphones. However, in 2011, it lost the top spot of the market to Samsung, and has never regained it. HTC's problems kept worsening every year, despite launching genuinely innovative products.
In 2017, the company banked on the U11 as the flagship smartphone to uplift revenue, and the strategy seemed to work in the beginning, as reports stated that the U11 was selling better than the HTC 10 and the One M9. However, in August, hopes disappeared as HTC posted its lowest revenue in thirteen years, which was a drastic decline from revenue earned in June and July. It was clear something had to be done, and reports stated that Google was interested to buy the company's smartphone division for its Pixels.
The deal was made official in September, but the reports weren't entirely correct as Google opted to buy only part of HTC's smartphone division for an amount of $1.1 billion. It is clear that both parties needed the deal as a way to achieve their goals, and HTC in particular was in need of that significant amount of monetary compensation. The Taiwanese company's Vice President has recently stated that the deal is on track to be approved and closed by early 2018.
In the meantime, the company is still in the business of selling its own branded smartphones, and things aren't looking good. The company released its unaudited revenue report for the month of October 2017, and reported a revenue of NT$ 6.06 billion (~$200 million), which was down by 6.86% from September's revenue – NT$ 6.51 billion ($215 million). More worryingly, it was down by 25.79% year-over-year when compared with October 2016's revenue, which was NT$ 8.1 billion ($268 million).
The total revenue since the beginning of 2017 is currently NT$ 52.43 billion, which is 18.18% lower than the January-October period in 2016. This means that despite the company's best efforts, the worrying decline continues.
HTC will surely be hoping that the upcoming launch of the U11+ and the U11 Life will have a positive impact on revenue. The holiday season is also near, and the U11+ in particular looks like a solid flagship phone which will probably not be affected by the teething display issues which have affected the LG-made Google Pixel 2 XL. It is a pity that US consumers won't get to buy the U11+, which will certainly affect its popularity in the long-term. We will see how the company's situation develops.
Source: HTC
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