HTC has reported a loss of NT$1.88bn (£40 million) for the first quarter of 2014, blaming ineffective and confusing marketing of the HTC One for the company’s performance in the three months leading up to the 31 March, which was worse than expected.
The HTC One has received positive reviews but this has so far failed to translate into financial success for the struggling Taiwanese manufacturer, which was at one point the world’s third largest smartphone marker.
The company is confident that the recently-announced HTC One (M8) and a refreshed catalogue of mid-range devices will improve its fortunes in the second quarter and allow it to better compete with other Android manufacturers such as Samsung and LG.
The flagship HTC One (M8) was launched last month and boasts many of the features of the original HTC One, along with a number of new imaging and software enhacements, along with a full metal unibody design.
HTC has admitted it experienced a torrid 2013, but it is confident that its new smartphones, along with its planned wearable technology products and new marketing campaigns will ensure that 2014 is a much better year for the company.
Despite mounting losses and sliding revenues there has at least been one piece of good news for HTC so far this year as In February it announced it had settled all outstanding patent litigation with Nokia.
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Blaming ineffective and confusing marketing for the company’s poor HTC One sales performance is just half of the problem in my opinion. One of the features that was definitely substandard was that their phone only had a four megapixel camera. In this day and age most of the newer phones have around 13 megapixels which makes the HTC One look like a preschool toy . The other features are nice and up to date but if you are really trying to sell a phone in today's world with people uploading photos to Instagram and FaceBook and Twitter everyday, than their marketing and development team has to have a phone with a capable camera.
It's actually four "ultrapixels" - HTC has almost doubled the size of pixels on the sensor, which means they capture a lot more light. It's a difference in technology.
"It’s actually four “ultrapixels” – HTC has almost doubled the size of pixels on the sensor, which means they capture a lot more light. It’s a difference in technology."
I think that's part of the advertising problem, HTC haven't done a good job of explaining what "ultrapixels" are and what the benefit, if anything, is. From what I've seen the pictures from the HTC One don't look noticeably better than pictures from other phones.
On spec sheets you see 4MP vs 13MP / 20MP in other phones so the other phones appear to be much better.