HTC slips into the red as Q2 revenues are halved from a year ago

6 Jul 2015

Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC made a loss of US$261m in the second quarter as revenues halved to US$1.07bn.

HTC’s resurgence appears to have been short-lived – the Taiwanese smartphone maker reported a net loss of US$261m on sales of more than US$1bn, half of what it made this time last year.

With the success of the HTC One M8 last year and following this up with a sleek and powerful new One M9 at Mobile World Congress, HTC’s second quarter results are a blow to the company.

Earlier this year, chairwoman Cher Wang took over the reins of the company as CEO and hinted that the company may soon be moving beyond the smartphone business into areas such as virtual reality headsets.

HTC is understood to be attributing the underwhelming second-quarter results to lower than expected demand for high-end Android devices and weaker than forecast sales in China.

HTC reported its first loss-making quarter in October 2013 and had hoped to be back in the black permanently.

But HTC won’t be the only Android phone maker feeling the heat. Korean tech giant Samsung’s investors are scrutinising the company’s sales of its new flagship Galaxy S6 device and fear that lower than expected sales could hurt profits.

Samsung is expected to issue guides to Q2 revenue and profits tomorrow (Tuesday, 7 July) with full results at the end of July.

HTC One M9 image via Shutterstock

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com