HTC on Tuesday reported its first year-on-year growth in quarterly revenue for three years, likely driven by an encouraging performance by its mid-range devices.
The Taiwan-based smartphone maker published preliminary results showing fourth quarter revenue of NT$47.87 billion (€1.3 billion), up from NT$42.9 billion a year ago. It marks the first on-year increase since the third quarter of 2011, when HTC’s revenue grew to NT$135.82 billion (€3.6 billion) from NT$75.8 billion in Q3 2010.
In revenue terms, HTC’s year typically peaks in the second quarter, which is usually when its latest flagship smartphone goes on sale. These peaks have been eroded in recent years though due to intense competition from Samsung and Apple at the high end as well as growing pressure at the low end from the likes of Huawei and Xiaomi. As a result, HTC has experienced a steady declin e in revenue.
However, in February 2014, HTC’s vice president of the U.K., Nordic and partner markets, Peter Frølund told Total Telecom that his company planned to step up product launches and marketing in the coming year.
The fruits of this labour were shown off later in the year, which in all likelihood explains the uptick in revenue. In New York in early October, HTC showed off the Desire Eye, which costs slightly less than the flagship One M8 smartphone but comes with a 13-megapixel front-facing camera for the purpose of taking high-quality ‘selfies’.
At the same event, HTC also revealed the periscope-shaped RE camera, while later that same month it announced the Nexus 9 tablet, developed in cooperation with long-time partner Google.
HTC also swung to a fourth quarter operating profit of NT$180 million (€4.7 million), from a loss of NT$1.6 billion a year ago. Net profit increased to NT$470 million from NT$310 million.
