HTC banking on ‘One’ smartphone amidst plummeting sales
HTC will hope to see the One do well in order to stem its dropping sales and revenues.
HTC has launched its newest flagship Android smartphone, the One, in Taiwan for a price of $670 (Rs. 36,700 approx.). While speaking to Digit, HTC revealed that the One would be launched in India in the first half of April; and according to the rumours we’ve heard, you can expect it to be priced around Rs. 48,000 here. Along with Taiwan, HTC was also supposed to launch the One in Singapore but the launch event was cancelled. Analysts have claimed that this is because of supply chain issues while HTC has said that it delayed the launch so that the phone would be launched with a large variety of network operators.
Overall market reception for the One will be extremely important for HTC which has recently been beset by falling sales. HTC recently revealed that its revenue for February of this year was 44% less than the same period last year. As a result of HTC’s poor performance, its share price on the Taiwanese stock exchange has also dropped by about 57% in a year. HTC has blamed its marketing strategy for not pushing up sales and therefore is showing off the HTC One in its own event instead of a forum like the recently concluded Mobile World Congress 2013.
If nothing out of the ordinary happens, the HTC One should do pretty well in the market. It is a very powerful device that runs on a 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor and features an Adreno 320 processor. It has a very good looking 4.7-inch 1080p HD display that packs in the pixels at 469 ppi. The One also has a camera that boasts of an all new Ultra-Pixel technology, which makes pixels inside photos larger than usual.
At launch, expect the HTC One to go head-to-head with other flagship smartphones such as the iPhone 5, the Sony Xperia Z and the Samsung Galaxy S IV.