For every three phones HTC sold in June 2017, it sold just one in June 2018. That’s right, the smartphone pioneer has revealed year-on-year sales are down 67%
Just a week after the firm announced it was cutting 1,500 jobs – around a quarter of its global workforce overall – it has revealed the sales figures, which make perfectly clear why the axe fell.
The cavernous drop in sales is a two-year high and comes after the launch of the HTC U12 Plus flagship device that has seemingly failed to capture the imagination of smartphone fans. It certainly didn’t impress our own Max Parker, who called the device “simply not good enough,” in his recent review.
[videoai]Awarding the phone a 6/10 score he bemoaned the terrible buttons that make the phone unusable, the big and heavy build, a below par screen and the issues with Edge sense.
Max did praise the firm for “attempting to do something different” with the U12+, but only the camera, the strong audio performance and the presence of a screen without a notch prevented things being much worse for HTC.
Related: Samsung Galaxy S9 | iPhone X | OnePlus 6
Many saw selling off part of its smartphone division to Google as the company waving the white flag and switching focus to its Vive VR platform. The company is continuing to make phones, albeit the volume of releases appears to be decreasing. Whether, given these sales figures, a continuing presence in the smartphone market is sustainable remains to be seen.
HTC’s stock has dropped by a third in 2018, suggesting investors are rapidly losing faith in HTC’s ability to reclaim its former status as the top dog when it comes to Android phones. Does the company have a miracle up its sleeve?
What will it take for HTC to mount a comeback? Or are its days completely numbers? Drop us a line @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
