HTC’s still struggling, so they’re going to shrink their product lineup
The HTC One M9 wasn’t the hit that HTC needed to be, and now the Taiwanese company is ready to take drastic measures to make sure their company doesn’t slip into the dark overnight. According to Reuters, HTC has revealed plans to make product cuts across the board, and put more emphasis on high-end devices in order to better compete at the top-end segment of the market.
HTC says the cuts will be across the board, and that they will be “significant.” And you know what? It’s pretty darn easy to believe them considering they have an annoying tendency to release nearly the same device 5 different times in one year. Here’s to the HTC One M9, M9+, E9, E9+ and tons of other devices which don’t differentiate enough on their own to justify their existences.
This gives us a major case of deja’vu. If you don’t remember, HTC vowed to shrink their product lineup back in the days of the original HTC One. The strategy didn’t work, and they concluded being more active in the affordable market was the way to go.
Well, that’s not working either, because you have guys like OnePlus, Motorola, ASUS and Xiaomi undercutting them and releasing affordable, yet compelling devices which consumers are more than happy to snap up. Oh, and s#*! like this doesn’t help, either.
It’s a case of HTC being good at a lot of things, but not great at just one thing. Samsung does the top-end better, ASUS and Motorola do the low-end better. Where does HTC fit?
That’s the question the company has to find the answer to if they want to avoid selling or going under. The company is trying to diversify by launching a line of wearables, accessories and other things which they can make money on without people having to buy their phones, so there’s that.
Still, things aren’t looking great these days. Analysts believe HTC is looking at another 4 straight quarters of losses, and there’s no optimism that the ship can right its course beyond that. We hope they can figure it out at some point, though, because more competition is always the healthiest situation.