Even though the recent smartphones such as HTC U11, U Ultra and HTC 10 have met with good response from the audience, there has been a sharp decline in HTC’s market share. In the last five years, HTC’s market value has dropped by 75 percent and this has been mainly due to its smartphone business that has been consistently declining. At present, the market share of the Taiwanese company has gone down below 2 percent.
HTC Vive VR is one of the most popular VR devices and also the company’s most successful assets in the past ten years. HTC’s Vive business is doing very well, but the entire company is struggling to earn profits. The Taiwanese has been making some impressive phones, but its marketing strategies have failed to reach the right audience.
According a fresh report from Bloomberg, that the Taiwanese company is considering multiple options for its future from selling off the Vive business and even putting the entire company on sale. A source familiar with the situation of the company has revealed that the Taiwanese firm has appointed an advisor to overcome the current crisis and is working on getting a strategic investor. It appears that full sale of HTC is unlikely to happen as there is no single acquirer looking forward to taking over it.
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HTC has come to a point that it has lost its brand popularity. As mentioned before, its poor marketing strategy has caused the average consumer to consider HTC as one of the reliable brands against major rivals as Apple and Samsung. Unless the Taiwanese firm strikes a deal with carriers stores or makes its device more visible to the customers, HTC’s smartphone market is unlikely to improve.
HTC is still making profits in its smartphone business through another way, meaning that the Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones that are manufactured by HTC allows it to earn direct profit from Google. However, this may not be the only way the company may want to make profits in the smartphone business. Moreover, HTC had built both the Google Pixel phones last year, but this year it is rumored to be manufacturing one of the two Pixel phones. This has also probably reduced the profits from the smartphones business.
As Foxconn is making iPhones for Apple and the latter is concentrating on optimizing the iOS experience. HTC could also consider selling its smartphone business to Google. This can be beneficial for Google too as it will have a sole manufacturing company to assist it in building the Pixel phones. And then, Google could focus on enriching the Android experience.
What do you think HTC should do to make its smartphones popular? Share us your views by adding your comments below.
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