HTC February 2007 Sales Report, Total Revenue Down by 15% Compared to Last Year

[Kris Kumar]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.htc.com/press_room/03-press-070306.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.htc.com/press_room/03-press-070306.htm</a><br /><br /></div><i>"High Tech Computer Corp. (TAIEX: 2498) today announced its total revenues for February 2007 were NT$ 6,599 million, a decrease of 15.58% YoY, while total revenues from January to February 2007 were NT$ 15,005 million, a decrease of 3.36% YoY. The reasons for February 2007 lower revenues were lower sales momentum in the US region, low market visibility and decreased work hours in February (Chinese New Year). However, the 1Q07 revenue will close to the sales revenues of Q106 and the 1Q07 net profit margin before tax will maintain the same level of the same period of last year."</i><br /><br /> <img src="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/Kris-2007mar-htcfebsales.jpg" alt="User submitted image" title="User submitted image"/> <br /><br />Is HTC having a difficulty maintaining its stellar sales momentum? Is its decision to brand and market the phones all by itself hurting it? i-mate is no longer buying units from HTC. Carrier sales is tough because of lower profit margins, even Motorola was recently affected by it. On top of all this, folks are delaying their purchase and waiting for the Windows Mobile 6 models. Lots of factors that can be attributed to this huge drop in total revenue. Given the products in the HTC pipeline, I am sure that they will be able to recover from this. At the same time, I would like to add this, HTC is now competing with the likes of Motorola, Samsung and LG for the carrier handset market. They cannot just keep churning out new models. They will have to build and maintain relationships with the carriers, which is not easy.

[Stinger]

From a European perspective, HTC's Smartphone line-up has been very lacklustre.

Europe accounts for 30%+ of the world's smartphone market (compared to 10% for North America), yet all we've seen are derivatives of the HTC Canary. Since the C500, Orange have released the C550 and C600. Beyond a change in screen resolution and an updated version of Windows Mobile, not much has changed in 2-3 years. That's a long time to stand still in the mobile industry. I used to see C500s everywhere, now I hardly see any HTC Smartphones. The HTC S620 is only just being released and the HTC StrTrk got a very limited release.

Things are a little better on the Pocket PC front (both the HTC Hermes and HTC Orbit appear to be doing well), but there doesn't seem to be much innovation going on.

Thankfully, it seems like Samsung and Motorola are taking up the slack.

[Kris Kumar]

I was reading the PPC thread and it seems O2 has switched from HTC to Asus.

As more and more players realize the coolness of Windows Mobile platform, HTC will find it harder to compete. It reminds me of HP iPAQ.

[Mike Temporale]

I agree. HTC really needs to step up the design and coolness of the Smartphones they offer.

[subzerohf]

I know why their sales went down: people are still pissed by their dust behind screen problem! :wink:

[Kris Kumar]

I know why their sales went down: people are still pissed by their dust behind screen problem! :wink:

That is another problem they have to deal with. Though I think they are doing a good job. My Dash is the first phone to be in my pocket most of the time (unlike others that I carried in the holster), and it seems to be doing pretty well. Not to mention no scratch or surface wear and tear.

[Mike Temporale]

I think the rubbery coating helps to reduce the scratchs. Mine is looking pretty good as well considering all the handling it's getting.