HTC posts record 79% quarterly profit drop

PanARMENIAN.Net - HTC, Asia’s second-largest smartphone maker, posted a record 79 percent drop in quarterly profit as competition from Samsung Electronics and Apple drove down sales of the Taiwanese company’s devices, Bloomberg reports.

Third-quarter net income slumped to NT$3.9 billion ($133 million), the Taoyuan, Taiwan-based company said in a statement Oct 8. That missed the NT$4.43 billion average of eight analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg in the last 28 days.

HTC, maker of the One, Sensation and Desire handsets, lacked a “sense of urgency” while “bureaucracy crept in,” Chief Executive Officer Peter Chou said in an e-mail to employees in August. Gains by Samsung and Apple’s iPhone 5 sales and stronger competition in China from unbranded, or so-called white box, phones could hamper a rebound this quarter, according to Kevin Chang, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in Taipei.

“HTC is likely facing further share loss in the U.S. and Europe” in the fourth quarter, Chang, who rates the stock sell, wrote in an Oct 4 report. “While HTC was doing well in China in the third quarter, we believe the dramatic price declines and performance improvements of white box smartphones have dampened HTC’s momentum in China.”