HTC profits miss forecast but flagship phone sales raise

Today, HTC posted Q2 profits which were significantly lower than expected from analyst as company experienced some manufacturing delays in Q1. Recently, smartphone markets have shown indications of slowing sales and competitors as Apple and Samsung have been struggling to comply with the bullish market.

Revenue was NT$70 billion, or $2.3 billion for the second quarter, meeting analysts’ expectations of a big jump from the previous quarter. Earlier this year production problems with its new HTC One led to record low profit. However, gross margins sank which led to net profit contraction for the second quarter lagging far behind expectations, at NT$1.52 billion against analysts’ average expectations of NT$2.02 billion according to Reuters data.

Taiwanese smartphone maker, which has seen its stock lose 80% in the past two years, released the HTC One into the U.S. in April. Unfortunately, same month Samsung Electronics Co. put its flagship Galaxy S4 on sale. HTC is still lagging after smartphone giants comparing to advertising efforts and distribution networks.

HTC has lost the early momentum of presenting to public its HTC One in February prior to Samsung’s Galaxy S4 as a shortage of camera components forced it to delay shipments. A stripped less powerful version of the flagship phone will be released next months according to information cited by Bloomberg.

The Taiwanese mobile phone manufacturer rose 1% yesterday diminishing its year to date decline to 32%.