HTC profit drops most since listing
Down 70% from a year earlier
Taipei HTC, Asia's second-largest smartphone maker, posted its biggest drop in profit since listing a decade ago after sales declined amid competition from Apple and Samsung.
First-quarter net income was NT$4.46 billion (Dh554.50 million), the Taoyuan, Taiwan-based company said in a statement on its website yesterday, a 70 per cent drop from a year earlier. The average of 17 analysts' estimates compiled by Bloomberg was for profit of NT$4.62 billion.
HTC "dropped the ball" on new products during the fourth quarter, Chief Financial Officer Winston Yung said in February, pushing inventories higher and prompting the company to forecast a "transitional" first quarter.
"HTC's sales growth for 2012 from a low base should exceed those for major competitors Apple and Samsung," Dale Gai at Barclays in Taipei, wrote in an April 3 report.
