HTC, the “quietly brilliant” company from Taoyuan City, Taiwan has briefly cast aside its purported persona to let the world know just how awesome it is. Between pointed bursts of Tarzan noises and chest thumping we were informed of HTC’s four-month hot streak of successive sales records, as well as gross-profits-after-tax amounting to a cool NT$ 8.64B (approx. $273M USD) for their most recent quarter.
There is little denying that HTC has been on a roll lately. High profile Android phones like the EVO 4G have helped solidify the handset maker as a household name in the U.S. smartphone market, and they have been cranking out new phones on all networks like clockwork. In fact they claim that that 5.4 million units left their assembly lines in the second quarter, and anticipate that number to reach between 6.5 and 7.5 million in the third quarter (close to Apple territory). It is rumored that one unfortunate Apple engineer witnessed Saint Jobs’ eye twitch from behind the cold glow of his iPad screen when these numbers were released. That engineer has not been heard from since, and all S|A appointed search parties were recalled late last night.
During the same quarter, Jobs’ henchmen were able to push 8.4 million units (1,150,800,000 grams) of iPhone product to addicts around the world generating company wide net profits of $1.83B USD (information on how much of that figure is from iPhone sales was not released.) Although Android’s adoption rate has recently surpassed that of the iPhone there are still plenty of indoctrinated sheep out there to pad Apple’s bottom line for quarters to come. That being said, HTC’s recent history of success should give the boys (and the odd girl or two) in Cupertino reason to stand up and take notice.
One wildcard to look for in HTC’s future is China. Many view the Chinese market as a modern day gold rush and HTC is no different. They are lined up next to everyone else and their respective mom’s to attack the Chinese market over the coming year in an attempt to increase market penetration and their bottom line.
The future looks bright for HTC and if they can continue to crank out innovative and quality handsets our crystal balls predict more record setting months ahead. On a more personal note, props are in order to HTC for working on a patch for the impatient ba*…, erm children of unmarried parents, who nicked a pre-release copy of the Android 2.2 Froyo image for their EVO 4G’s. There are companies out there who would just as soon brick the phones, or leave them hanging without support for their lack of patience and respect, but HTC seems to be taking the higher path on this one. Bravo.S|A
Dave Morgan
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