HTC suffers 25pc profit drop while Samsung thrives

HTC saw its quarterly profits drop by 26 percent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2011, the company has said in unaudited financial results.

The Taiwanese phone manufacturer made profits of 11 billion Taiwanese dollars (£236m) in the quarter, down from T$14.8bn in the same quarter of 2010, the company said on Friday.

HTC had already warned in November that its quarterly revenues would be flat, cancelling an earlier forecast of a 30 percent boost. In the event, revenues were down 2.5 percent, according to Bloomberg, and profits saw a much bigger drop.

Rival Android device-maker Samsung also released an estimate of its earnings for the same quarter on Friday, showing a 15 percent year-on-year rise in sales revenues and a profits boost of between 66 and 79 percent.

HTC has not commented on its unaudited results, but Bloomberg quoted Nomura analyst Peter Liao as saying the company had suffered from "severe competition at the high end [of the smartphone market] from Apple and Samsung".

Samsung became the world's top smartphone supplier in the third quarter of 2011, according to IDC analysts.

The Korean electronics manufacturer has not provided details of its unaudited results at this point, but the Financial Times reports that much of the revenue and profit boost is down to increased smartphone sales.