HTC almost triples first quarter profit to $511 million, courtesy of one little green robot

HTC recently passed Nokia in market capitalization, and there are strong underlying reasons for that. Wall Street rewards profitable companies by bidding up their shares, and Apple's shareholders know that all too well.

The Taiwanese company just announced its January-March quarterly results - net profit almost tripled to $511 million, compared to the same quarter of last year. Now we can again say that what changed in the meantime is the surging popularity of one little green robot, whose incessant march conquered the world of mobile last year, and is likely to continue well into the next few years as well.

Of course, it also helps that the company is focusing on the high-end, and not churning out cheap smartphones or feature phones. With phones like the HTC EVO 3D, tablets like the HTC Flyer, and the first mass LTE phone, the HTC Thunderbolt, it obviously intends to observe the same mojo this year as well.

Due to the strong sales of its Android phones, HTC's shares have already surged with a third this year, making the company's chairwoman, Cher Wang, the richest person in Taiwan.

source: Reuters