HTC has its worst April in 6 years; disappointing HTC One M9 shipments blamed

With HTC reporting this morning that April revenues plunged 38.6% year-over-year, analysts are quickly placing the blame on disappointing sales of its new HTC One M9 flagship phone. Just one month after reporting "robust" sales that led to its best Q1 since 2011, HTC reported its worst April revenue figure in 6 years.

For the month, HTC took in $439.95 million, down from the $719.24 million the company reported in revenue last April. Sales declined 32.26% from the $652.44 million the company garnered in March 2015. An unnamed analyst who toils for Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co., says that shipments of the HTC One M9 flagship phone amounted to 4.75 million units for the month. That is a sharp 43.75% decline from the 8 million units of the HTC One (M8) that were shipped in April 2014. It is a 35.71% decline from the 7 million units of the HTC One (M7) shipped in April 2013. May revenues could be helped by the launch this month in China of both the HTC One M9+ and HTC One E9+.

The same anonymous analyst said that HTC might have underestimated the impact that rumors about the Snapdragon 810 chipset (which powers the HTC One M9) would have on sales of the phone. Talk that the Snapdragon 810 SoC was prone to overheating might have led to poor reviews and reluctance on the part of carriers to order much inventory of the phone. On the other hand, Samsung decided to pass up on the chip, using its own home grown Exynos 7420 chipset for the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 edge. Sammy's redesigned flagship phones are selling like hotcakes and will probably lead to a record year for Galaxy S shipments. One Samsung executive reportedly said that the company expects to sell 70 million units combined of both flagship models this year.

While HTC earlier said that it expects to report $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion in revenue for the second quarter, one analyst from KGI Bank says that HTC will be hard pressed just to reach the low end of that range. HTC had been in the middle of a turnaround until last month.


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source: TaipeiTimes via GforGames