HTC ships record 12.1 million units in Q2
Summary: Motorola should move over as it has been bested by HTC, which sold a record 12.1 million handset units during the second quarter.
Motorola should move over as it has been bested by HTC, which sold a record 12.1 million handset units during the second quarter.
As seen in the graph below, that figure is up by a whopping 124 percent year-over-year. HTC accredits the major success to its entry-level (and cheaper) ChaCha and Wildfire S smartphones. On the higher end of the spectrum, HTC cited the Sensation, the Evo 3D and the Thunderbolt for continuing "to drive mobile broadband to 4G speed"
There were also a slew of other mobile devices that made their market debuts during Q2, such as the Salsa and 7-inch Flyer tablets.
Morgan Stanley was impressed by HTC's "robust" growth within Asia (especially with China's pre-paid markets) as well as steady growth across the United States and Europe. Analysts even predict that HTC's market share in Asia to grow by 200 percent year-over-year with "quadruple growth in China."
HTC itself cited China as its "standout market" for brand development, noting that "brand awareness, preference, and ownership all increased 10% showing very strong conversion through the brand funnel."
However, analysts were still cautious because of "vague answers to all litigation issues," and they warn about volume growth decelerating over the next two quarters. The most notable legal problem for HTC right now has to deal with Apple over more patent infringement disputes. During Q2, HTC picked up 235 issued patents and patent applications from S3 Graphics for $300 million.
Despite some doubts, HTC expects to ship approximately 13.5 million units in the third quarter, which would be up 98 percent year-over-year.
Related:
- HTC Wildfire S is T-Mobile's new budget smartphone, coming August 3
- BGR posts image gallery of rumored HTC 10 inch Android tablet
- An Apple/HTC patent deal could signal big trouble for Android
- Teen talk: HTC Status is a great Facebook and texting device
- Android vs. Apple and the state of smartphone industry: 4 takeaways
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Talkback
RE: HTC ships record 12.1 million units in Q2
Shipped, But not sold
RE: HTC ships record 12.1 million units in Q2
Not quite: Apple sells a lot of phones directly -- both via site/mail and
However, this does not mean that HTC's phones do not sell well -- they do, and the company earns billions per year thanks to Apple's innovations in multi-touch capacitive screens gesture-based UI that HTC did not license.
Except Apple has ahuge % of direct to consumer sales.
A huge %. HTC has next to none.
HTC has a pretty tight supply chain/inventory.
Second best run handset company going today. Everyone else, besides Apple, is a mess.
But how much money did they make?
Also note the use of the term "ships" instead of "sold". "Shipping" something is absolutely meaningless. For all we know, HTC only sold 3 units in Q2.
Finally, Apple is a huge concern for HTC in 2 ways. First, the obvious patent issues could very well knock HTC out of business. Second, if Apple ever decides to take their old iPhone 3 technology and sell it as a budget iPhone, HTC is done.
RE: HTC ships record 12.1 million units in Q2
As for Apple ending HTC, not going to happen... These patents are only enforced in part of the world and at least one of them is likely to be thrown out in the coming months.
HTC is doing gangbusters.
They reach an all time high of profit share in the industry this quarter and pushed to 7.5% profit share on about 3.5% market share.
RIM just edged them out on profit per handset but only by a bit. Apple, of course, squashed them in the profit.
The loss of Horace Luke at HTC is a sad thing for the company. He pushed some great consumer focused designs at the company. Hopefully, he was there long enough to instill the thought process deep into the organization.