HTC plans to reduce the number of smartphones it releases this year, instead focusing on releasing a few major ‘hero’ devices to win back market share.
HTC UK’s chief Phil Roberson told Mobile Magazine that the smartphone company will only release a few high-spec devices this year rather than flooding the market with numerous devices.
“We have to get back to focusing on what made us great – amazing hardware and a great customer experience. We ended 2011 with far more products than we started out with. We tried to do too much,” he said.
“So 2012 is about giving our customers something special. We need to make sure we do not go so far down the line that we segment our products by launching lots of different SKUs,” said Roberson.
Roberson also said HTC will also scale back efforts to break the tablet market, though he said the company would not exit the sector completely.
The interview comes after HTC saw slower sales in the fourth quarter of 2011 after experiencing record quarters prior to this. HTC attributed this to strong competition from Apple and Samsung and promised to release more competitive products in 2012.
