HTC plans to release fewer Android phones in 2012
Summary: In a smart reversal of strategy, HTC says it will decrease the number of devices it releases in 2012.
Like most other manufacturers, HTC's Android strategy in 2011 seemed to center around flooding the market with as many different devices as possible.
Fortunately, the company seems to be coming to its senses. In an interview with Mobile magazine, Phil Roberson, executive director of HTC U.K. and Ireland, said that HTC's 2012 will look a bit different from its 2011.
"We have to get back to focusing on what made us great – amazing hardware and a great customer experience," he said. "We ended 2011 with far more products than we started out with. We tried to do too much."
Instead, HTC will focus on releasing hero products, flagship devices of higher quality like the Galaxy Nexus and iPhone. The move, while shrewd, is probably one HTC should have followed from the beginning.
As for tablets, HTC says that it won't push the devices as strongly in the coming year, though it still plans to have a hand in the market.
And HTC is not alone. At CES 2012 Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha announced a similar shift in strategy, noting that Motorola plans to slow down its smartphone release cycle in 2012.
"A lot of products that are roughly the same doesn’t drive the market to a new place," he said.
Ultimately, while the new strategies of HTC And Motorola will reduce the number of devices to choose from, they'll also no doubt increase the quality of the ones that are released. And that can only be a good thing for consumers.
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Talkback
I called this
Post continued
It is a sick market. We all lose.
RE: HTC plans to release fewer Android phones in 2012
Shipped vs Sold
There, I fixed that for you.
Every single usage based statistic, every single one, puts iPad's marketshare at over 95%.
AT&T reported that over 80% of the smartphones they shipped last quarter were iPhones.
Android came out of the gate with some nice figures. Unfortunately, it turns out that in most cases, a consumer's first Android phone is also their last. We are seeing this now with Android's marketshare plummeting. This is a combination of Google counting Androids shipped instead of sold and people hating the few Androids that actually were sold.
People holding on to a faint hope that Android will succeed are going based on old numbers. Every single recent number that has come out spells Android's doom.
RE: HTC plans to release fewer Android phones in 2012
"Apple shipped 15 million iPads worldwide during the fourth quarter, garnering Cupertino 58 percent share of the tablet market. But while Apple still holds the top spot, its share dropped 10 percentage points since the fourth quarter of 2010, according to Strategy Analytics.
Android, meanwhile, picked up steam, capturing 39 percent share of the tablet market during the quarter, up from 29 percent a year earlier. Shipments of Android tablets tripled to 10.5 million units during the fourth quarter of 2011, up from just 3.1 million a year earlier."
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399372,00.asp
Kindle Fire ring the bell? and with ICS 4.0 it is going to be a tough contender.
Then they sold a lot of defective tablets
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/10/97-percent-of-tablet-internet-traffic-comes-from-ipad
"In August 2011, iPads delivered 97.2 percent of all tablet traffic in the U.S"
The correct wording is shipped not sold.
Pagan jim
RE: HTC plans to release fewer Android phones in 2012
According to the article, HTC is NOT withdrawing from Android. They are cutting back on the different models they have. Instead of, lets say, 25 phone models they will concentrate on, lets say, 10 models. They plan to sell as many phones, just not as many different models.
I'm sure they do plan on that
"They plan to sell as many phones, just not as many different models."
My prediction is that reality will not come close to plan.
RE: HTC plans to release fewer Android phones in 2012
I don't know if everyone's going to withdraw from Android, but the oversaturation of both models and OEMs is likely going to change. My guess is many of the lesser known/reputable Android OEMs will cease to be Android OEMs, leaving the heavy weights, who will also got the HTC route and release less models. I also wouldn't be surprised to see the heavy weights start to hedge their bets with Windows Phone or other mobile OS's.
Wildcard? Amazon. They have the ecosystem and a pricing model to compete. And, if they're willing to take a loss on the Fire, imagine what type of pricing they can offer on a smart phone. I know all the Android fans want to include Amazon's devices in the Android numbers, but to me, it's a different animal and a stretch at best.
RE: HTC plans to release fewer Android phones in 2012
I agree. In their lust to capture marketshare
they have placed Android on too many low end, crappy models that they are killing themselves.
I imagine that Google may have been pushing them a bit for that route, hoping to get a greater Android marketshare, but with their purchase of Motorola, I can see more handset makers abandoning that segmanet of the market and concentrating on more profitable models.
RE: HTC plans to release fewer Android phones in 2012
That's a good point. Maybe the OEMs will actually focus on their customers' experience and give them Gingerbread, ICS or whatever they're capable of running instead of forgetting about them 5 seconds after they buy the phone.