HTC posts record low profit after delayed HTC One launch

Taiwan's biggest maker of smartphones continues to quietly sink, after its latest quarterly earnings report shows grim reading for investors.

Following the delay of the highly anticipated HTC One — its flagship device for the year, set to take on Samsung's Galaxy S4 — the company's profits suffered record low levels and missed revenue forecasts.

HTC's unaudited net profit was T$85 million ($2.82m) during its January-March quarter, compared to T$1 billion ($33.2m) during the fourth quarter, and down from T$10.9 billion ($3.63bn) in the same quarter a year ago. 

Meanwhile, first quarter revenue was T$42.8 billion ($1.42bn), far lower than the expected range of T$50-60 billion ($1.66-1.99bn) that the smartphone maker forecast in its February outlook. By comparison, revenue was T$60 billion ($2bn) during the October-December quarter.

According to Bloomberg, a shortage of camera components forced the smartphone maker into holding off its release in key markets, such as the U.S. and the EU by upwards of a month. Analysts are not expecting a full revenue bounce-back as the HTC smartphone hits the store shelves just a few days before the new Galaxy S4 does.

In all, the HTC One launched in only three markets out of about 80 it was planned to launch in, according to Reuters.

Last week, HTC announced its First smartphone, a device that comes with the new Facebook Home software, that features the social network on its home screen.