This is what happened to HTC and why it failed

When was the last time you saw an HTC ad or used a phone or accessories? Probably a long time ago. You may be wondering what made me write about this, recently I saw a guy using a 4-year-old HTC phone in 2019!

Nothing consequential but that made me think “Where is HTC now”? Are they even making phones now? How much revenue generated by HTC in recent times?

With all these questions I started my research and believe me the findings were not good. I was never a hardcore HTC fan but they made quality phones. I even bought one for my mom, the HTC desire 820.

It really felt bad for HTC, how come a company which once was the third biggest smartphone manufacturer in the world only behind Samsung and Apple is almost non-existent now!

So, what actually happened to HTC and what HTC is now.

What went wrong and why HTC failed?

Once HTC was considered Apple’s rival, not Samsung, it was so popular. So, what went wrong? Experts say two things, Marketing and meaningful innovations. HTC heavily cut down its marketing budget and relied mostly on traditional marketing. They forgot the fact; far from sight, far from mind.

I mean why, when other businesses were moving to modern social media marketing, HTC decides to stick to the traditional way. It’s hard to believe that the same company once hired Robert Downey Jr for $12 million for their marketing campaign.

The campaign didn’t go well and HTC shifted to the other extreme side totally cutting marketing budget.

That’s why people say; HTC either does too much or too little.

While the smartphone industry was rapidly changing and new features and technologies were being introduced. Unlike before HTC was bringing smartphones with little changes and that made its consumers turn to other brands.

HTC seemed perfecting trivial details and features of its smartphones while ignoring the major innovations in smartphones. 

Is HTC still making phones?

Short answer, Yes! HTC launched two mid-range smartphones HTC u19e and desire u19 plus this year in its own country Taiwan. It’s sad to see a company that once played a major role in the smartphone industry globally has now shrunk to a country that too on knees.

HTC has even done job cuttings from 19000 employees worldwide to less than 5000 worldwide. HTC now seems to make phones through third-party manufacturers.

What is the revenue of HTC 2019?

Here you will realize in what horrendous condition HTC is in. Samsung’s revenue in the first quarter of the year was $50 billion while HTC’s was just $95 million! Remember its “Revenue”, not profit. This data is enough to give you an idea of where HTC stands today.

Whatever little revenue the company makes, most of it now comes from the sales of their Vibe VR set. That’s why the company has shifted its focus on making VR.

Even the second and third-quarter revenue of the year is not encouraging. Not only this year but even last year was terrible for HTC. Seeing the statistics it seems evident that HTC is not going to make any profit anytime soon.

HTC is fighting an almost lost battle in the industry.

If companies can’t even learn from the fall of Nokia and its mistakes then what else. Competition in the smartphone market is brutal and even companies like Sony and LG are crawling and may soon be out of business.

Failing is an integral part of any business and even big players like Samsung and Apple have failed but they keep experimenting while always trying to grab consumers’ attention through innovations and marketing.

What’s your view on why HTC failed so miserably, tell us in the comment section below.