ios to androidHTC, which makes some of the best Android handsets – and hence, most preferred mobile ereading devices – around, has just posted its most favorable sales numbers for a long time, recording $1.5 billion of sales in the fourth quarter of 2014, a marginal increase on the same period a year earlier and the first time it has seen quarterly revenue growth since the third quarter of 2011, according to Bloomberg. HTC also recorded a solid operating profit for the period, against analyst consensus estimates of a loss.

Bloomberg attributes this turnaround partly to new mid-range handsets in HTC’s portfolio, as well as the premium devices like the HTC One which have won such plaudits. As Bloomberg said, “this is a figure we haven’t seen for a very long time: it’s a plus sign in front of the year-on-year growth numbers.” HTC has also inherited Asus and Samsung’s crown as maker of the official Google Nexus 9 reference standard tablet for Android, though the well-established HTC Desire line and other similar models pitched for Chinese consumers and other growth markets are probably more to do with the company’s better performance.

This could imply that it makes little sense for handset manufacturers anywhere to pitch against Apple for the high end of the mobile market. But it certainly suggests as well that there is little danger of shrinkage or cannibalization in the mobile space for now at least.

3 COMMENTS

  1. “But it certainly suggests as well that there is little danger of shrinkage or cannibalization in the mobile space for now at least.”

    Odd, you’ve painted Huawei and Xiaomi numbers as bad news for Apple with no basis in fact, yet one would imagine the sole basis for such a claim would be cannibalization in the mobile space. I didn’t think your previous posts were very intelligent but now I see know logic whatsoever.

  2. Also, unclear to me how you think analyst consensus estimates still had HTC in the red this quarter when the source article states: “The Taoyuan, Taiwan-based company reported net income of about NT$470 million, beating the NT$212 million average of 14 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.” Of course, you are also the only person following this data who thinks Apple will only sell 60 million iPhones in 2014 when they passed that number in the second quarter and the final tally is likely to be very close to 3x that figure so… whatever.

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