Skip to main content

Launch of Vive, flagship smartphone fail to translate into financial success for HTC

The April launch of the Vive and a new smartphone weren’t enough to bounce HTC back into the game as the Taiwanese company had a poor fiscal showing for the month of May, with year-over-year results down by 37.4 percent.

HTC says its consolidated revenues were a dismal 6.753 billion Taiwanese dollars, or $209 million U.S., for the month of May. From January through May, the company’s total unaudited consolidated revenue was 27.32 billion Taiwanese dollars, or $847 million U.S. dollars.

Recommended Videos

The company saw a small boost of 17.4 percent in unaudited consolidated revenue from April to May, but it’s troubling that with the flagship HTC 10 available now, as well as one of the most well-received virtual reality headsets, HTC’s consolidated revenue still managed to go down by 58.5 percent in comparison to the same five-month time frame from last year.

The company doesn’t have any other product launches in the near term to help boost these numbers for the coming months. A rumored smartwatch was slated to be announced in June, but leaks have noted the release of “halfbeak” has been pushed back to the fall.

HTC was also the rumored partner for both of this year’s Google Nexus devices, but even that doesn’t seem to be the cas,e as a Huawei executive has said the company is making a Nexus device, following the success of the Nexus 6P.

HTC isn’t the only former king struggling with its mobile division — BlackBerry may have to shutter its own mobile department if the Priv or its upcoming Android phones don’t manage to turn a profit this year.

Julian Chokkattu
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Julian is the mobile and wearables editor at Digital Trends, covering smartphones, fitness trackers, smartwatches, and more…
Everything HTC announced at ViveCon 2021: Vive Focus 3 and Vive Pro 2
everything htc announced at vivecon 2021 vive focus 3 vice pro 2

HTC took to its ViveCon virtual reality conference to announce two new VR headsets that cater to professional and enterprise needs. From the stand-alone Vive Focus 3 to the PC-based HTC Vive Pro 2, HTC VR owners will benefit from some big upgrades this year.

The company cited PwC's research, which predicts that VR and AR will add more than $1.4 trillion to the global economy by 2030 in highlighting the importance of virtual reality. At stake is the creation of hundreds of thousands of new jobs across every sector and industry, HTC said.

Read more
How to watch HTC’s ViveCon today, the ‘most important VR event of the year’
htc vivecon vr headsets 2021 vive air leak

HTC has been teasing that multiple new virtual reality headsets could be launching at ViveCon, the company's VR conference, this year. Slated to take place virtually this year on May 11, HTC had announced its plan to "[unveil] game-changing VR headsets, software, and platforms to take your experience to another level" at the show. Depending on what's announced, these new VR headsets sound like they could replace a number of options that are currently considered the best VR headsets you can buy.

While ViveCon is expected to be an enterprise-specific conference this year, those following the augmented, virtual, and mixed reality market could see how HTC is advancing the segment with its latest wares and platform to foster more innovation in the VR space.
How to watch ViveCon 2021 live stream

Read more
Two new ‘game-changing’ VR headsets could arrive at HTC’s ViveCon next week
HTC Vive Pro Eye virtual reality headset

HTC has been teasing that a new virtual reality headset could launch at its Vivecon conference next week, but the company may have more up its sleeve. We are hearing reports that HTC has several VR headsets in the works. The company is expected to launch at least two new headsets at ViveCon on May 11, and it will likely use the venue to talk about the recently leaked Vive Air.

The two headsets rumored to be launching at ViveCon are the HTC Vive Pro 2 and the Vive Focus 3 Business Edition. HTC's sports-focused Vive Air was leaked late last month, but the company quickly debunked speculation that this particular model will be launching any time soon. Instead, HTC said that the Vive Air is just a concept.

Read more