HTC sees Q4 revenue, shipments lower

Taiwanese smartphone maker, HTC Corporation, said on Monday it saw slightly lower revenue and shipments in the fourth quarter than in the third, citing uncertainties from new models going to be unveiled by the company and competitors, as well as global economic invisibility.The worlds number five smartphone maker said it was more optimistic about LTE 4G phones to be unveiled in the first quarter when meaningful shipment would be seen, and stressed that it had no plans to introduce phones pricing lower than $100 as the media reported.We hope to capture the opportunities from customers migrating from feature phones to smartphones with our quality; thats something we wont compromise, we cannot launch low-end products, HTC Chief Finance Officer, Winston Yung, told a telephone conference.Yung said HTCs smartphones for the mass market were currently priced between $200 and $250, according to Reuters.Analysts, however, said many of HTCs high-end phones were actually competing against each other.They have many products really targeting a similar audience and this is never a good thing, Gartners analyst, Carolina Milanesi, said.Although I believe HTC is still the vendor that has made more progress in building a company experience around Android, I think they need to look at their portfolio very carefully and rationalise it.In a statement, the company said that it expected its fourth-quarter revenue at T$125-135bn, down from T$135.8bn in the third quarter, and shipments at 12-13 million units, compared with 13.2 million units in the third quarter.HTC also said it expected gross margin and operating margin at around 28 per cent and 14.5 per cent, respectively, the same level as in the third quarter.The company has seen strong sales growth in the last quarter, with China jumping ninefold compared with the same period a year earlier. HTC owned 1,300 channels in China by the end of the third quarter and targets to expand to 2,000 by the end of this year.
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