HTC’s profits and market share continues to plummet

Things aren’t looking too pretty for HTC as the company struggled to close out 2012 on a positive note. With profits and market shares plummeting faster than you can say “Quietly Brilliant”, we can’t help but wonder if the Taiwanese company still has enough fuel in their tank to mount a big comeback this year.

According to HTC’s latest, unaudited consolidated Q4 result, the company only managed to tally a total revenue of NT$60 billion, a 41-percent drop compared to the previous year and the lowest we’ve seen from them in almost three years. The company’s global smartphone market share was also reduced by more than half which stands at 4.6% in Q3 2012 compared to 10.3% a year before that.

Bloomberg reports that HTC’s lackluster quarter is to be attributed to the unsuccessful debut of their Droid DNA aka Butterfly J and One X+ in the big markets such Northern America and China. However, analyst Richard Ko of KGI Securities Co. believes that these handsets, specifically the Butterfly, should have a positive effect on the Taiwanese company’s Q1 performance.

In spite of their disappointing performance as of late, analysts are still a bit optimistic about HTC’s future forecasting an increase of NT$1.8billion (compared to their NT$60B Q4 results) in sales this quarter. But the analysts aren’t the only one who have their eyes set on a brighter future. According to an interview courtesy of Wall Street Journal, CEO Peter Chou is also expecting positive results this year by being more aggresive in marketing their great products. The only question now is if they can execute their plans as well as they’ve said it.