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According to PhoneArena HTC’s losses narrowed in Q4 2020. This is good news for the former smartphone giant. Unfortunately, the company is still losing money. HTC has been struggling to find much success in recent years which has led to the company losing its prominence in the smartphone market.
Back in Q1 of 2018 Google completed a $1.1 billion dollar purchase of HTC’s engineering team. That purchase helped HTC to have a period where they did not lose money. But, outside of that purchase from Google HTC has been losing money since 2015. Unfortunately, that trend continued last quarter too.
HTC reported a huge loss of NT$ 1.3 billion dollars ($46 million) on revenues of NT$ 1.6 billion ($56 million) last quarter. The most recent quarter ran from October to December 2020. The company’s goal of having a profitable quarter is still out of reach.
However, HTC is making progress towards that goal. In 2019 its operating loss stood at NT$2.2 billion ($77 million), and that is despite reporting higher revenues of NT$ 1.8 billion ($63 million). Overall the company’s gross margin has gone from 25.7% to 27.9% in 12 months. This increase is a significant improvement.
A bigger improvement is in the operating margin of loss portion of their finances. Their operating margin is now at -80.9% compared to -122.1% which is a huge improvement. HTC continues to make smartphones and other technologies.
HTC’s Losses Narrowed In Q4 2020, but it still has a long way to go
The company hasn’t announced its 2021 plans just yet, but its continued focus on improving profitability seems likely. To aid in this goal HTC has consistently reduced expenses for years.
Throughout 2020 HTC continued to cut its operating expenses by implementing reductions to its marketing budget. The company has also lowered general administration costs as well as R&D spending. The lower R&D spending may or may not mean fewer products in the future.
HTC was a behemoth in the Android smartphone market back in the day. At one point it was Samsung vs HTC for dominance of the Android market. HTC created the very first Google Nexus phone and had a strong relationship with the search giant.
However, things took a turn for the worse as Samsung became number one and companies like LG and Huawei began to flourish. HTC still makes devices that unfortunately do not get as much attention as they used to.
The company has a solid track record of iconic devices such as the HTC HD2, HTC Hero, HTC Thunderbolt, HTC One M7, HTC One M8, and others. Only time will tell if HTC can claw its way back to prominence and profitability.