Squeezed by Apple and Samsung, it had a bad quarter and expects the next to be worse
There was a time when HTC and Android were practically synonymous.
The Taiwanese manufacturer built the first commercially available Android phone -- the HTC Dream -- in 2008, and two years later collaborated with Google (GOOG) to build the Nexus One, the flagship of the Android line. Last November, it edged past Samsung, Apple (AAPL) and Research in Motion (RIMM) to take the lead in the U.S. market for smartphones.
How the mighty have fallen.
On Monday, HTC reported a 26% drop in fourth quarter profits and warned that revenues could drop 36% this quarter. Despite promises that the company would bounce back on the strength of four new models to be introduced at the Barcelona Mobile World Congress, the stock closed 5% lower in Asian trading.
"Our weakness in first-quarter guidance ... comes from facing competition in the U.S. from iPhone and Samsung," CFO Winston Yung told analysts in a conference call. He declined to provide unit sales numbers.
According to IDC, Samsung is now the No. 1 maker of smartphones in terms of shipments, both in the U.S. and worldwide (see here). But Apple is taking an ever larger share of the profits. In the December quarter, according to Asymco's Horace Dediu, Apple's iPhone captured 75% of worldwide profits in mobile phones -- smart or dumb -- with only an 8.7% market share, leaving precious little on the table for companies like HTC.
Between them, Samsung and Apple are sucking up 91% of the winnings
Click to enlarge. Source: Asymco.com
Asymco's Horace Dediu on Friday updated his quarterly review of mobile phone profits, and the news for everybody but Apple (AAPL) just gets worse.
As the iPhone's share of the market in terms of units shipped has grown from 3% in second quarter of 2010 to 8.7% last quarter, Apple's share of the profits has swelled from MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 3, 2012 8:20 AM ET
Not the knockout blow Steve Jobs sought; Google has until April to find a workaround
Apple (AAPL) has won a partial victory in an intellectual property case that Steve Jobs had famously vowed to fight to his "last dying breath."
The U.S. International Trade commission ruled Monday that the software in some of HTC's Android smartphones violated one provision of an Apple patent and that those phones would no longer be allowed into the MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 19, 2011 5:46 PM ET
The new deadline in a key Apple vs. HTC patent infringement case is Monday, Dec. 19
HTC Incredible S
There are six more days of nail-biting ahead for Apple (AAPL) and HTC.
A final decision on a closely watched case before the International Trade Commission that was due on Dec. 6 and then postponed to Dec. 14 has been postponed once again to Monday, Dec. 19.
This is a big one.
In the worst MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 14, 2011 6:25 AM ET
From a 14.3% share of the global market in September to a 20.3% share in December
Click to enlarge. Estimates: Canaccord. Chart: PED
A note to clients issued Tuesday by Canaccord Genuity's T. Michael Walkley had good news and bad news for Apple (AAPL) investors.
The bad news, which we reported here, was that he expects sales of Amazon's (AMZN) Kindle Fire to cut sharply into the iPad's dominance of the worldwide MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 7, 2011 8:03 AM ET
Estimates the iPad's share will drop from 74% to 53.2% by the time Christmas is over
Estimates: Canaccord Genuity. Chart: PED
The chart above is what Canaccord Genuity's T. Michael Walkley thinks the worldwide tablet market will look like this quarter after Amazon gets through disrupting it by selling a few million Kindle Fires at or below cost.
In a note to clients issued Tuesday, he estimated that ...
Apple's (AAPL) share MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 6, 2011 2:57 PM ET
Shares of HTC are down sharply in advance of a ruling on a key Apple patent suit
HTC Incredible S
HTC shipped more than 5.7 million smartphones to the U.S. last quarter, according to Canalys, beating out Samsung and Apple to become the country's leading smartphone vendor.
So there's a lot at stake for the giant Taiwanese phone maker -- and indeed for the manufacturers of all Google (GOOG) Android phones -- MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 5, 2011 7:41 AM ET
A cellphone eavesdropping scandal casts a shadow on Apple's competitors
Caught red-handed: Carrier IQ logging Eckhart's keystrokes
Have you heard that every text message, every e-mail, every phone number, every keystroke made on a Google (GOOG) Android phone may be secretly recorded, logged and sent to your cellular provider by a tracking service called Carrier IQ?
No? That's a surprise, because it's a scandal that's been brewing for several weeks -- ever MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 30, 2011 5:42 PM ET
Intellectual property law sounds like fodder for think tanks and PhD candidates — so why is Silicon Valley suddenly tearing itself apart over a seemingly sleepy subject?
By Daniel Roberts, reporter
FORTUNE -- If you feel like you've been seeing more news about patents than ever before, you have. In July, a consortium that included Apple, RIM and Microsoft made a move on Nortel's patent portfolio, outflanking Google. In August, Google hit MORE
Sep 13, 2011 2:57 PM ET
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* Gamestop (GME) president Tony Bartel revealed that the videogame retail chain is testing the sale and distribution of a branded Android tablet that will likely stream console games to it. (GamesIndustry)
* It's (still) official: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington confirmed at the tech blog's Disrupt conference yesterday morning that he's no longer an AOL MORE
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| Company | Price | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Corp... | 7.95 | -0.16 | -1.97% |
| Microsoft Corp | 31.27 | -0.17 | -0.54% |
| Ford Motor Co | 12.28 | -0.25 | -2.00% |
| General Electric Co | 19.39 | 0.17 | 0.88% |
| Citigroup Inc | 32.36 | -1.00 | -3.00% |
| Index | Last | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dow | 12,938.67 | -27.02 | -0.21% |
| Nasdaq | 2,933.17 | -15.40 | -0.52% |
| S&P 500 | 1,357.66 | -4.55 | -0.33% |
| Treasuries | 2.00 | -0.04 | -1.96% |
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