HTC Sees Poor Sales in Europe, But Stronger Than Expected Chinese Sales

From DailyTech: For cash-strapped Android phonemaker HTC Corp. (TPE:2498), an inexplicable month-long seizure of its flagship smartphones may have hurt the company's ability to get stock to customers. But HTC appears to be continuing to struggle, to some extent, on appeal factor as well.

The company reported slow sales on Thursday, which forced it to revise its sales estimates, which had previously predicted a larger recovery.

While its HTC EVO 4G LTE and HTC One X were impressive, many buyers are opting to wait instead for the Samsung Galaxy S III from Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (KSC:005930). While HTC's handsets remain isolated on single carriers in the U.S., Samsung's flagship phone will launch on all four of America's top carriers.

Thus the problem likely boils down to a mix of availability and marketing.

New chief financial officer, Chia-Lin Chang, warns that despite the myriad of complications in the U.S. market, U.S. sales were respectively better than Europe where the situation was very bad. Comments Mr. Chia-Lin, "A bigger softness is from Europe than the U.S. Given all the things happening in the second quarter here, we certainly hope we can get the right guidance and have a more smooth transition going forward."

The only good news is that HTC saw stronger than expected growth in China, a market long dominated by Samsung and Nokia Oyj. (OMX:NOK1V). Comments Mr. Chia-Lin, "But sales in China are better than we thought; we expect China will contribute a representative percentage to the revenue this quarter."

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