Taiwan’s HTC Corp slid into the
red for the first time in the third quarter, with sales hit hard by fierce competition
in the smartphone market, supply chain constraints and internal turmoil.
Underscoring a dramatic decline
for a company which boast award-winning smartphones but has failed to develop a
durable brand of handsets, it posted an operating loss of T$3.5 billion as
sales for the quarter tumbled by a third from the same period a year earlier.
At a net level, it booked a loss
of T$2.97 billion, bigger than an expected loss of T$1.8 billion, according to
Thomson Reuters Smart Estimates. That compares with a net profit of T$3.9
billion in the same quarter last year.
Its shares were down 2.3 percent
in early trade.
HTC lacks the scale of bigger
rivals Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and its troubles this year have
only multiplied.
In Addition to internal feuding
and executive exits, sources have said that it is facing casing shortage for
its HTC One Mini. It has also lost some patent cases and media have reported
that three of its design executives have been arrested on suspicion of leaking
trade secrets.
HTC’s share of the global
smartphone market has plummeted from a peak of 1.9 percent in 2011 to 2.6
percent in the most recent quarter, according to research firm Gartner and
analysts have said it needs a wholesales reevaluation of its strategy in order
to survive.
