HTC to ship less, better models

HTC UK chief Phil Roberson has told MobilityToday HTC released too many models in 2011, and suffered the consequence.

‘We have to get back to focusing on what made us great – amazing hardware and a great customer experience. We ended 2011 with far more products than we started out with. We tried to do too much.’

He said the company will be concentrating on more on high quality, high end “hero” devices from Q2 2012.

‘So 2012 is about giving our customers something special. We need to make sure we do not go so far down the line that we segment our products by launching lots of different SKUs.’

The move is however not risk free, as with less models there is a bigger effect if a phone fails to be a hit.

CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood said: ‘If you rationalise your portfolio you have to deliver a ‘hero’ product, but the margin for error increases and you have fewer products to fall back on.’

IDC’s Francisco Jeronimo said HTC had ‘great’ products but it did lack the marketing spend of a company like Samsung, which closed 2011 in an impressive position.

Motorola has recently said they will adopt the same strategy of less models with more marketing attached to each device.

The change of heart is really a symptom of the malaise of all major  Android OEMs except Samsung at the moment, with both Sony Ericsson and Motorola recently reporting poor sales.

HTC’s first quarter net profit fell 26% to $365m, its first quarterly decline in earnings for two years as it faced competition from Apple and Samsung’s Galaxy range.

HTC’s new Windows Phone range appears relatively optimised at present, with a high and handset, the HTC Titan and a mid-range handset, the HTC Radar, which appears to be selling well. The HTC Titan will soon however have to compete with the HTC Titan II, a near identical device with LTE and a higher resolution camera, which suggests HTC still has some work to do working on their roadmap.

Via MobileToday.com