HTC posts Q4 losses on VR products

taipei — Taiwan’s HTC on Tuesday announced worse than expected fourth-quarter results and analysts said its much-hyped virtual reality products had failed significantly to boost the struggling smartphone maker.

Revenue from October to December was down 13.62 per cent year-on-year to Tw$22.2 billion ($720 million). The net loss was Tw$3.1 billion, an improvement on the year-before loss of Tw$3.4 billion, a company statement said.

It marked the seventh consecutive quarter of losses for HTC, once a star of the intensely competitive smartphone sector. For the whole of 2016 HTC posted revenue of Tw$78.16 billion, down 35.77 per cent from the previous year. Losses narrowed 32 per cent to Tw$10.5 billion from a year earlier, mainly due to non-operating gains such as on foreign exchange.

“The results were much worse than expected. Although its VR line launched in April helped revenues, the scale is too small to offset rapid sales declines of its smartphones,” said Jeff Pu, an analyst at Yuanta Securities. The homegrown Taiwanese brand has been struggling in the face of stiff competition from international rivals Apple and Samsung as well as strong Chinese brands like Huawei.

The company said its new smartphone models launched in the fourth quarter had been well received, as it continued to build the HTC VIVE virtual reality system — including opening the first VIVEbased arcade in Taipei. — AFP