HTC has really got its game face back on in 2012 after a less-than-stellar 2011, but it's looking increasingly like the public just aren't responding to the new HTC One range as positively as hoped.
The company's latest numbers are in, and the figures for April just don't hint at the kind of turnaround we were expecting once the One handsets went on sale – leaving a serious cloud over the Taiwanese firm's prospects for the rest of the year.
HTC's consolidated revenue for April came in at around $1bn, which sounds pretty good, and is in fact an improvement for the second straight month, but sales are still down 20% on the same period last year, when HTC was in the middle of a run of six consecutive months of record revenues.
It's certainly not disastrous news for HTC, but to be honest we thought the launch of the impressive new One range would have had a bigger impact than it has – even at this early stage of the game. There's still time, yes, but it's not like anyone else will be standing still as the year progresses.
The smartphone landscape is constantly evolving, but it's been particularly interesting to see how the picture has changed among the top Android players over the past couple of years.
HTC was the leading Android OEM all through its initial dramatic growth phase, but once Android reached top spot in the mobile OS ahead of iOS, BlackBerry OS and Symbian, its growth inevitably slowed down.
That much was inevitable, but what followed was a gradual shift in the Android balance of power away from HTC and towards Samsung, as the latter's Galaxy S II took a firm grip on the leading seat at the Android table a year ago, and hasn't let go since.
Coupled with the arrival of another immensely popular iPhone in the second half of last year – the iPhone 4S – and it's left a smartphone industry where Apple and Samsung are pretty much the only companies making any serious money.
Samsung has just outed the formidable looking Galaxy S III, and expectations are that Apple will come out swinging with the iPhone 5 over the next few months, so neither of the top two smartphone players look likely to be giving away any of their market share cheaply.
Which means Windows Phone Apollo-powered Nokias, RIM's BlackBerry 10 offerings, and the best of the rest Android phones from HTC, Sony, Motorola, LG, Huawei fighting over what seems like a very tiny piece of pie to us. Good luck with that, HTC...
Via BGR
