Revenues at HTC, the early Android pioneer, are sinking fast with the company reporting a 44 per cent decline on sales in February 13 compared to the same time last year. The result was worse than anticipated, and analysts were anticipating a bad set of numbers.
The result is no aberration. By the end of Q1 the company will likely have to report its sixth quarterly decline in growth rates from its last eight quarters.
February sales were also 27 per cent below January, while January sales were 28 per cent below December, although unlike the February numbers, January and December can be partly written off as seasonal variations.
Revenues are now at their lowest point for three years, and as US tech sheet Venture Beat pointed out,” HTC’s sales are back to the point they were before HTC adopted Android. And that’s pretty scary.”
The company is banking on a strong rebound from sales of its soon to be launched HTC One. However, it will be competing head-to-head with Samsung’s Galaxy S4 for oxygen in a very competitive space.
When it comes to being able to translate new product into sales on the evidence to date, Samsung with over 40 per cent of Android market share dominates HTC, whose share is below seven per cent.
And Apple’s next iPhone (the 5S) iteration due in August will only complicate matters further.
You can track the rapid rise and fall of HTC’s quarterly revenue growth in this slide over at Business Insider.
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