HTC lost a ton of money in Q4 2019

HTC may be feeling quite positive about this year, but there’s no denying the Taiwanese company performed absolutely terribly in 2019. In fact, it has reported its seventh-consecutive quarterly loss with no signs of improvement.

The company behind the world’s first Android smartphone announced today that revenues fell from NT$2.45 billion ($81 million) in the previous three-month period to only NT$1.81 billion ($60 million) in the October-December 2019 quarter.

That alone is extremely disappointing, but things get even worse for HTC. Losses widened to NT$2.37 billion ($78 million) during the quarter, up every so slightly from the NT$2.36 billion ($77 million) it reported three months earlier despite the huge drop in revenue.

This was a direct result of the company’s operating margin, which dropped from an already appalling -98.6% to a catastrophic -122.1%. On the plus side, HTC’s gross margin did grow from 22.9% to 25.7%, representing the eight-consecutive quarter of growth.

HTC highlighted the Vive Cosmos VR headset it launched in Q4 in addition to the Exodus 1s and Desire 19s smartphones it released. Unfortunately, early 2020 numbers show little sign of impact on the business.

The only thing that could suddenly turn things around for HTC at this point is a successful 5G smartphone, but even that seems unlikely considering the intense competition. Nevertheless, the company has confirmed it plans to release one later this year.