HTC, the Taiwanese technology giant has recently reported an early quarterly loss ($101 million in the third quarter). The tech giant is suffering from the growth in the lower-end smart phone market and the pressure from new competitors, mostly in China. HTC primarily produces high end models where it competes with Samsung, however Samsung dominates as it is currently the biggest producer of smart phones on both ends of the spectrum and also produces memory chips that are used by companies such as rival Apple. HTC has found itself in a bad position as it is stuck competing with Samsung, and isn’t exploring the lower end market where Lenovo, ZTE and Huawei, all Chinese companies are gaining major recognition. Horace Dediu, an independent telecommunications analyst in Helsinki, Finland, stated that it would be very difficult for HTC to recover based on past evidence. It is usually very common for a phone maker to sell its handset business or leave the phone business years after a first quarterly loss is posted. For instance Motorola lasted 5 years, Nokia and BlackBerry only 2. I honestly believe that HTC will overcome this loss and continue to produce high quality primarily Android-based smart phones as it has been doing ever since it launched the Desire series in 2010. What Motorola, Nokia and BlackBerry have in common is that they did not switch to Android which holds well above majority of the mobile OS market. 

Sources:

Pfanner, Eric. “HTC Reports Its First Loss, but Samsung Shows Vigor.” The New York Times. N.p., 4 Oct. 2013. Web. 6 Oct. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/technology/htc-suffers-first-quarterly-loss-as-samsung-soars.html?ref=business&_r=0>.