The once high-riding HTC is seeing its financial situation getting worse, thanks in part to a recent patent dispute with one of its biggest rivals, Apple. Today the Taiwan-based smartphone maker announced that its profits for the second quarter of 2012 were less than 50 percent compared to a year ago.
Reuters reports that HTC generated a profit of T$7.4 billion (about $247.7 million), the company said, down from T$17.52 billion from the second quarter of 2011. Revenues were actually up, coming in at T$91 billion compared to T$67.79 billion for the same period a year ago.
In explaining the cut in profits, HTC said that the current economic situation in Europe was hurting demand for its smartphones. It also brought up a recent patent dispute issue with Apple that caused US Customs to temporarily halt shipments of its HTC One X and the HTC 4G LTE smartphones. Both devices were later cleared to be shipped to the US again.
HTC has been named as one of four hardware launch partners for Microsoft"s Windows Phone 8 OS, along with Samsung, Nokia and Huawei. A recent rumor claims that HTC will offer three Windows 8 based smartphones for sale by the end of 2012.
Source: Reuters