HTC shared details of another fairly depressing quarter as it published its latest financial report this week: Despite a 20% rise in revenue over the previous quarter, it posted a net loss of $3.4 billion TWD (around $101 million USD), its third quarterly loss in a row.
The Taiwanese company put on a brave face in its press release, though, talking up some "good momentum for its Desire line of smartphones", adding that "the premium Android HTC One A9 launched in October was well received across Asia, the US and Europe." Unsurprisingly, HTC didn"t mention the One A9"s troubled US launch, which included shipment delays and confusion over availability of certain models.
The press release made no reference to HTC"s One M9 range-topper either, which was unveiled almost a year ago. But as TNW reports, the company"s chief financial officer Hui-Ming Cheng did acknowledge on its earnings call that its high-end devices have struggled.
"To be very candid," Cheng said, "our flagship [phones] did not perform well; actually our flagships fell far short of expectation for the entire cycle of 2015." He added that HTC will "need to come up with one or two new hero products" to help improve its prospects at the top end of the market, but said that the company is investing "a lot of resources" in mid-range and premium devices this year, including its new flagship.
This is not the first time that HTC has acknowledged that its high-end 2015 handsets missed the mark. CEO Cher Wang said last June that its next flagship would make "significant improvements" in design and innovation, following the launch of its same-again One M9.
Recent leaks have suggested that the One M10 - known also by its development codename, "Perfume" - will feature a Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM and a quad-HD AMOLED screen.