HTC today announced their earnings for the second fiscal quarter of 2014, Q2 2014. They posted a quarterly profit of NT$2.26 billion ($76.5 million), or NT$2.74 ($0.09 USD) per share on $65.06 billion NT ($2.18 billion USD). HTC’s shares were up as high as 4% on Taipei’s exchange trading this morning (Taipei time). Many people were interested to see how well HTC would perform because of their new HTC One M8 which we’ve reviewed. Based upon their current performance, it seems clear that HTC’s moves clearly resulted in improved profitability and a change in the company’s tide of losses from the previous quarters. Granted, they didn’t actually hemorrhage money in any quarter, they did post some of the biggest losses in the company’s history which led to many people questioning whether or not HTC could survive. Now that this question has been answered HTC can continue to move forward with their strategy without worrying as much about what investors will think about their decisions.

The HTC One M8

There are a lot of rumors that HTC will be picked to make the next Nexus device, likely the Nexus 9 tablet which should allow HTC to increase their revenue and hopefully profitability as well. If they are able to successfully manufacturer a successor to the HTC One Max and upgrade the display, camera and processor, they can probably compete with Samsung, LG and Apple this fall. Right now there aren’t that many smartphone players in the industry that are profitable, but HTC can once again consider themselves among the profitable ones.

It will be interesting to see whether or not the company will actually manufacture a tablet since they haven’t actually done so since they made the Flyer, their attractive but failed Android tablet nearly 3 years ago. Considering that the specs of that tablet are nowhere near the rumored specs of the Nexus 9 tablet that HTC is rumored to be building for Google, it would be a vast improvement for the company’s image and would hopefully encourage them to make more tablets and innovative devices like the HTC One.

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Many electronic devices come out of Taiwan. Success has been fleeting for several Asian-based manufacturers. Recently HTC said they see their second quarter returning positive numbers, but with declining revenue. Samsung, albeit troubled by the court loss to Apple, has been outselling HTC products. The company thinks its HTC One’s redesign will boast sales.

An Android alternative to Apple’s iOS, the G1, aka HTC Dream, gave HTC a head start a few years back which was soon eclipsed by Samsung’s entry into the Android market. The Galaxy series made a large footprint in the smartphone arena. Lately, HTC has had problems with their supply chain. Part of their realignment plan is to outsource product to contract manufacturers. Another bullet in the plan is a lowering of prices.

As in any industry, money talks and executives walk. Scott Croyle, Senior VP of Design is the latest to walk. After a five year stint with HTC, he is taking his Mechanical Engineering degree from the University of Texas to greener pastures, although he will still be “advising” on some HTC projects. It will be interesting to see where his philosophy of giving designers creative license to build unique and emotion evoking devices leads.
Jonah Becker who has worked closely with Croyle as Associate VP is expected to fill the vacated slot. Becker was trained in Industrial Design at the California College of the Arts (also known as Cal Arts).

Jonah Becker replaces Croyle at HTC

Announcing another change, HTC said: “Drew Bamford will lead HTC Creative Labs and focus on innovative new products and user experience strategies.” Additionally, HTC reported stronger than expected earnings based on HTC One M8 sales being stronger than expected. And, HTC plans to significantly step up their advertising push with the M8 as they’ve already successfully sold 500,000 units of the M8, according to Reuters, not just that, but the HTC One M8 is selling better than its predecessor, the M7 which we reviewed. In fact, today only, HTC is offering the new HTC One M8 for $100 off (on-contract) so that you can buy the One M8 for $100 on-contract with a new 2-year agreement.

We’ll keep an eye on HTC to see if these changes cause an uptick in their popularity and their bottom line.

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