As the one who is always being impressed by HTC smartphone’s design and hardware specifications, the blog post entitled “HTC: A Falling Giant” written by Wilfred Loh has interested me a lot.

Initially, as a brand from nowhere, the Taiwanese mobile-phone firm has experienced a swift rise from anonymity to omnipresence after the releases of some good smartphones such as One X, HTC Touch, and the Sensation series. However, mentioned by Wilfred Loh, the revenue and profit of HTC has been plummeting after decreasing sales. The rationale of the sales drop is simple: HTC does not understand its customers.

For example, in 2011, HTC spent $300millions to purchase 51% share from Beats Audio to upgrade the audio system of its smartphone. HTC tended to build a point of difference and a point of brand recognition by installing the very famous Beats Audio speakers and logo into its flagship smartphone. Unfortunately, the strategy fails, as only a few customers choose to buy a HTC phone because of its offer of a Beats headphone. For those who like Beats Audio they will just buy the headphone by themselves. As a result, this never helps HTC to create a sales increase. After that, HTC sold the shares back to Beats Audio.

More importantly, HTC has been too focusing on hardware building and neglecting the very vital software development. Apple has a large smartphone’s market share because iPhone not only has a good design and build quality but also very fascinating software such as iTunes and iOS. Besides, Samsung is also aiming to add some “soft-power” to its mobile devices by shopping for software companies, particularly those offering mobile music services.

While implementing innovations, HTC’s engineers must make sure that they understand the needs of customers and customize the phone that the customers willing to buy.