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In an effort to “streamline operations” after slow growth in certain markets, HTC is closing down their operations in Seoul. The move comes as mobile manufacturers native to South Korea like Samsung and LG have marginalized competition from the Taiwanese company and captured a 90 percent share of the local market. This isn’t the first branch of HTC to see its doors closed recently, with divisions in Brazil and North Carolina also getting the axe. The downsizing also mean an unfortunate loss of jobs for many of the folks working for HTC in South Korea, a result that HTC is not altogether happy with.
HTC is hoping that a reduced device portfolio and focus on better product lines like the One series of phones will help to light a fire under a business which saw massive growth in recent years only to become stagnant as competition in the mobile space heated up. Part of this process apparently involves trimming some of the fat at the corporate level, a move which is understood but that does not come without its own human costs.
[via Engadget]
Dear HTC,
Here it’s what you do:
For the mass consumer, hire a new marketing firm. (see Apple and/or Samsung)
For the tech crowd, removable batteries, sd card slots, and no more gimmicks like beats.
You are welcome.
They do just find you know Samsung is a Korean company and that Korean love to buy Korean product. That is why LG and Samsung do so well in Korea. They even outsell Apple over there. The Nexus does not support SD but do we hear you crying about it? And beats audio program does a good job with smoothing out the mid and highs and boosting the lows in many Headphone. Both my Sony MDR XB500 and ZX701 gain that when I turn it on. And no tech people does not stop buying something because it has a program you can turn off or on.
Im not sure if you’re mad at me or not…I love HTC, most of my phones have been HTC…I just don’t lie some of the things they have tried, and I know they aren’t the only ones.
And I HAVE cried, at the top of my lungs, at the lack of sd card support on nexus devices.
:)
The fact is that what Google they don’t like the SD card and SD is slower in the NAND that built in. Blame Google for this and not just the OEM. Beside the Nexus one all other nexus does not have SD card
I definitely complain about the Nexus devices not having a SD card slot. It’s the main reason I will not buy one. The other is that the Nexus 7 has a Tegra processor. Everybody is so hung up on cloud storage and all that. I’m not. In the age of tiered data plans, cloud storage/streaming is not a viable option to me. I just bought a 64GB micro SD card so I can put all of mu music on it and not have to stream it.
I also will not buy a phone that does not have a removable battery. HTC’s phones look really nice, but lack two major things I look for.
Dear HTC
Please support your exsisting handsets over a 24month cycle most contracts run and please remember to keep your fan base HTC desire hd and learn from its lesson
Because pulling out of a major market is the best way to increase sales and improve your bottom line! Brilliant!
Hopefully they at least hire a third party advertising company to continue marketing there.
The fact that the Nexus line gets updates first will outweigh the missing SD slot. Unless your with Verizon’s Nexus….then your screwed all the way around.
Verizon’s version is 32GB storage, and its easy to find “ways” to get the most recent OS.
I’m not screwed. I have Verizon GN. I have most recent JB, and I have more storage than you.
HTC EVO 3D has both an SD card slot and a removable battery. Why so sad?
That’s the very reason I held off on the gn, and waited for the EVO. I wanted the sd slot.
I agree with BMG on a few things.. HTC needs to get a new marketing firm big time! I rarely see any advertisement that draws the slightest bit of interest for me.
As far as beats, its really nit a gimmick. It helps the sound quality dramatically whether I’m on Bluetooth headset, headphones, or Sync’d to my F150. It destroys the i4s in sound quality.
I wish they would put removable batteries and SD cards on all their phones.
Also, pulling out of S. Korea corporately doesn’t mean they have stopped doing business in S. Korea it just means their Corp HQ is being streamlined into other areas. Lastly, someone stated that Samsung and LG had these markets strongly due to their loyalties.. I would imagine this is prob very true. The Tawaineese vs Korean (I’m not sure) culture may be similar to an American Union worker only buying American Products. (anybody have knowledge on this?)