HTC quarterly profits improve by a third, beat even its own lofty expectations
By Vlad Savov 
posted July 6th 2010 6:19AM
posted July 6th 2010 6:19AM
posted July 6th 2010 6:19AM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
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Bough a Desire in Q2 myself. First non-Nokia phone I've owned.
@triplea I'm seeing lots of people with Desire's in the UK now, proved to be quite the popular one.
@triplea
Dude, exactly the same here!
@triplea
HTC is going to clean up the market with their WP7 and Android phones!
@fpad77
I knew it was going to be popular when it started generating hype with people that aren't actually into technology.
I think it stopped being an iPhone imitation and became something Desire-able.
@McKirf
That is, if they don't cripple them in some way. I'm still bitter about the whole Evo 30fps cap, as well as its subpar camera image quality and audio recording.
I've decided my first 4G phone on Sprint will be the Samsung Epic. QWERTY Android slider with Hummingbird core FTW.
@triplea same story here, no regrets... (I miss the physical keyboard sometimes but it's a small price to pay)
@skosecki
You know what. Ever since the Touch Diamond was introduced, I knew HTC will one day become a huge phone corp and succeed.
Congrats, they deserved it.
I love their phones.
@triplea
Me too bought a Desire in Q2, its great.
@triplea South Korea's getting the better HTC phones this month like the Desire, Nexus One, HD2, etc too so I'm really excited about that. Looking forward to it!
@triplea yes love my HTC Desire, makes the fruit logo phone UI look a bit dated these days, only wish HTC offered a phone that is pre rooted with the default vanilla android install for dev's
@triplea
Same here! :-) too bad it's still hard to find any good accesories for the phone :-/
I really hope they bring FroYo out for the Desire soon! then it'll be even better!
@engadget I really like the "quietly loaded" logo... that would be awesome as a bootlogo!
@triplea
It doesn't hurt that it's FREE too. My sis re-upped with "3" and swapped her N95 8GB for a HTC Desire on a £25 tariff.
@McKirf
Good but not great numbers. If I were running MSFT, I pay a 60% premium and buy HTC. It would allow MSFT to control their hardware destiny.
HTC is being squeezed for margin, MSFT has poor hardware support. HTC is the largest windows mobile device maker, but their comparable Android phones are more attractive. For MSFT who has the cash this should be a no brainer. HTC would make their Zune + tablets + phones.
@triplea I'm a huge Apple fan, but even I moved to a Desire when the IP4 was released. Just not worth the premium anymore.
And the Desire is just awesomesauce.
@McKirf
How can you even consider mixing in m$ phone in to this?!
@r34p3r
Dude, they have broken the 30FPS cap already over at xda-developers. Check it out, there is a fully functional kernal now averaging 43-44 FPS, without errors. the only caveat is that they are still working on getting wifi and 4G working for those who have already downloaded the latest update from Sprint. Won't take long though before that is fixed, maybe today or tomorrow. *** Your phone must be rooted first. Put Damage Control's ROM on your phone if you want your battery to last 12hrs+ heavy usage. Then go to the below link to get new kernal with FPS lifted. It is already smooth as the iphone interface, and they still have about 10 FPS higher to go:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=711964
By the way if you are a little nervous about this, I am running Damage Control's ROM, and it still looks stock (has Sense, etc), and I have no more errors than when it was stock.
Damage control's trhead:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=700649
@triplea
iPhone is great no doubt. But the options of HTC devices and Android are a bit better IMHO. Not much but a bit.
@r34p3r Did you really mean to use the word "bitter?" Did you have an EVO and grew so frustrated you took it back, or have you simply been embittered vicariously through reviews? I use my EVO every day, hours a day, and I can honestly say I love it. Yes, there are a few EVOs that are affected by the 30fps that haven't been fixed by the XDA workaround 002 devices. I have one of the afflicted devices and honestly besides gaming, it is rarely noticeable. There should be few if any still of these in any distribution channel, due to the EVOs demand.
Otherwise this is an Incredible-[beating] device. And though the Epic looks tempting, everyone has to admit that Samsung's Android history is spotty at best: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/23/samsung-behold-ii-finally-gets-android-1-6-update/
I plan to get an Epic for my 2nd line myself, but only because HTC has not blessed us with a Desire-class device with a full QWERTY keyboard, We'll see what the specs are for the HTC Vision. If it were out already, I think even the Epic/Galaxy S's Hummingbird SoC would not have me considering a non-HTC Android device.
@r34p3r
The image quality is the best on any phone.
Lower the ISO and you will get picture that put everything else to shame. You will need a lot of light though.
@triplea I love my Desire! I've had for about 2 months now & still play with it like I did the first day I got it! HTC FTW!
They have among the best phone designs out there. Well deserved.
@michaelwub You think?
@MoonWalkerCTE
Of course not.
@michaelwub Don't confuse him.
@MoonWalkerCTE Therefore he is.
Damned be fragmentation, we be making moneys!
they would make more profit if they could just produce more phones and keep up with "the other companys" production
@iHack13 No thats not the problem
@MoonWalkerCTE I dont mean more models . There is already a huge fragmentation.
I mean more devices of the evo or smthn. Since HTC doesnt produce many devices of a particular phone they are "outselling" very fast.
HTC is like let's build a few phones. Sell em. Then refresh after a few months only one or two specs on the datasheet. Put a new face on the new device and sell it again. Also let's lock the devices we sold earlier on old software so that we can sell the phones with a newer software on it.
HTC should concentrate on a single dominating premium phone which is able to compete for more than a year with other phones.
But HTC is afraid of creating and supporting one superphone which would have a great potential. thus they keep on concentrating on numerous little projects. No huge project but frequent little projects -> not many devices per model . but many models ( = fragmentation)
@iHack13 If you have half a brain you can stroll on over to XDA and update your phone
@iHack13
what a load of rubbish. why would htc want to make just 1 phone. other than to be like apple?
I hope they never do that, choice is good for us you know!
@skatekarate I have more than half a brain. I'm a xda-dev member and I'm tired of trying out tons of ROMs until one satisfies me in an acceptable manner
@iHack13
I'm glad you last paragraph hit the nail somewhat on the head but I don't think HTC will do the Apple business model. Lets not forget that Android is a free and ubiquitous OS. Therefore the competition will generate the same type of Android phone in many iterations, therefore, making a year old HTC Android phone look like shit.
Apple is currently the only cell phone maker able to do a
one-phone-per year business and make mega bucks at it.
Now HTC will have to juggle making W7 phones with a non-free OS along with their Android based phones. Moreover, they will have to make the W7 phones for different carriers as they do with the Android variety.
That is a hot mess!
@nabberuk
you call it choice. I call it fragmentation and the incompetence of keeping up without having to build one good long lasting phone.
It's not like HTC releases two or more top model phones simultaneously so that you can call it choice.
@pspitts Wow. that's so true. You are so right... got me thinking
@iHack13 let me get this straight. so HTC should make one phone on one carrier and send minor updates over a yr then make one mildly better update a yr and call it a whole new phone and just 4 get about variety.
That is exactly why I sold my IPhone and got and EVO. All of my computers will continue to be MAC for now but my phone will be androids for life. I love Apple but I love this Evo now.
@dhamp2g nope. Did I lose any word about carrier or iPhone affliction ? I
I dont get it. All I say is HTC should start doing the real shit by creating THE phone. I dont get it why this whole thing is dragged to an iPhone discussion again.
I dont give a damn about the iPhone right now. What has the carrier to do with my opinion of a superphone? This is about HTC only and whether good or bad critics the iPhone receives, the point is that Apple does succesfull PR by being representative in every discussion and subject independent of bad or good critics. Thanks iPhone Fanboys and Haters, you are doing a good job without getting paid.
I just want a supernice phone. I dont want to be an HTC or Apple fanboy .
@pspitts
One can slice and dice the data in many interesting ways. Here are some takeaways for me:
1. HTC has no choice, BUT to introduce new models as quickly as possible to stay fresh in the consumers mind. For reference, notice how the Droid X has totally eclipsed the HTC Incredible on Verizon. So if you're an Android phone maker you HAVE to keep adding new 'exciting' products to stay in the loop. Notice how the mid range Android phones from Motorola ALL flopped! Android requires a manufacturer to keep putting out new superphones.
2. This means that the product life cycle for an Android phone gets shorter and shorter, which means that margins are getting squeezed on an ever shortening cycle as more and more manufacturers jump on board.
3. The hardware competition in the Android market is very similar to the Netbook market. There you had pretty standard hardware specs (everyone was pretty much using the same configurations) and pretty standard software (Windows 7 Basic)....at first manufacturers like Sony tried to maintain their margin through superior designs and features....but gradually it ended up being price. The price was fixed and you had to squeeze in as much features as you can at that price. But as the top end price fell lower and lower, the bottom end of the market dropped out and we're left with a high end only market with almost no margin. The competition between the top end Motorola, HTC and Samsung is going to be pretty intense in the Android phone market.
4. The problem that HTC faces is that because they have so many different phones with so many different configurations they don't have the supply chain advantage that someone like Apple has. Samsung has the advantage of a fully integrated vertical chain. They make all of the components for their phones. HTC is an assembler. Motorola is in the same boat as HTC and hence both with be competing like crazy to be the favored partner of Verizon....guess what? their margins will fade further.
5. For HTC the other factor (like for Motorola) is Apple. When and if the iphone gets on networks such as Verizon or Sprint or T-Mobile, what sort of leverage will they have over the networks? Will they be forced in Palm like discounts or BOGO deals where they will need to eat part of the subsidy...
The underlying business dynamics tells me that they would be wise to entertain an offer from Microsoft...right now, HTC's numbers show their advantage of being an early leader in the Android market. Their Sense UI which is one of their advantages will not be there when Google revamps their UI with Ginger bread.
60% revenue growth compared to a year ago is good but not great. Last Q was the one where the iphone was in it's last quarter before a major upgrade and HTC has a number of high profile phones announced. For comparison last Q Apple had a 130% growth in iphone sales. HTC should be able to deliver that sort of growth, after all they have the best Android phones by far at the moment. What did they have last year?
@iHack13 I don't see why you can't simply use a phone for a full year the way it comes. I used to have a g1 and I have to admit it was absolutely unusable the way it came from factory so I used Cyanogenmod's Rom on it and the difference was remarkable. Right now it's a different story. Android OS has matured quite well. I bought an EVO and wanted to root it immediately. However, when I started to use it I found out that android has really made a lot of progress and I haven't felt the need to actually root the phone until I see something that really blows me away from the ROM community. It has everything a normal user could want and then some. I have been with it since it came out and have consumed more than 5gb of data on the phone w/o tethering or anything and it has met every expectation I had admirably except for the camera which sucks for an 8mp. The problem with see with the 1 phone model is that you can't have a phone that will meet everyone's needs. The EVO is a great phone for me but certainly it isn't a phone my mother, co-workers or regular customers will want. Android's strength is that you can create a phone that fits a set of needs and customers while maintaining a degree of interoperability between them. My calendar, email, contacts and most important applications will work across several devices seamlessly. If you want to have the "I have the best phone out there" feeling for a long time and the bragging rights I'm sorry to say those days seem to be long gone. The best phone for me may not be the best phone for someone else. Just like with a pc or laptop, the answer is to simply choose the phone that fits your lifestyle and needs instead of trying to get the fastest, hungriest meanest phone out there because in a few months there will be another one taking its place.
HTC is chewing up all other Android phone makers out there. Motorola, on the other hand, is hanging on for dear life.
@Wesscoast
Really? Is it just me that thought the Droid was a really popular phone in the US?
@lookseehear
Yes...but only the US. There are several billion people in the world who are NOT American. Fun fact.
@Wesscoast
How do you know? You have access to HTC's earnings portfolio?
@pspitts
Um.. their earnings are at the top of this post I believe...In case it wasn't blatantly obvious HTC is THE Premier Android phone maker. I don't expect much from Dell. Motorola's earnings and profitability are atrocious. Like I said. Go HTC.
@Tes
This is true, but there is a disproportionately large amount of money to be made from smartphones in the US, since there is a disproportionately large amount of money in the US. Hence, a single very popular phone model in the US could potentially boost a company into a very profitable quarter.
@Tes A majority of those several billion people, live on less than $10 a day and aren't within even the Nokia smartphone reach...facts are more fun only when used incorrectly to make a point in jest that doesn't make sense.
@Tes As of 2005:
"At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.Source 1
More than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening.Source 2
The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.Source 3"
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats
Next stop: World domination
@Bahumbug
Google's got that reserved for themselves, so that'll be hard...