HTC is not giving up after another lousy quarter, preparing multiple new 5G phones
It feels like we've been waiting for HTC's inevitable retirement from the mobile industry for about... a century now, but while LG recently sealed the fate of its perennially money-wasting smartphone division, the Taiwan-based company insists it's not dead yet.
Believe it or not, HTC is even looking to accelerate its handset release schedule, preparing to unveil "new 5G models" (yes, plural) sometime during the second quarter of this year, according to anonymous "industry sources" quoted by Digitimes.
If the Taiwanese publication, which has a mixed track record when it comes to anticipating new products from smartphone vendors such as HTC, ends up being accurate this time around, these mysterious "5G models" could arrive just a few months after the Desire 21 Pro 5G.
Released in Taiwan back in January, that wasn't the company's very first 5G-enabled mobile device either, following in the footsteps of last fall's U20 5G mid-ranger. The latter 6.8-inch model, by the way, has apparently been discounted recently in HTC's homeland to better compete against Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo's inexpensive upper mid-end 5G handsets.
In other words, HTC is surprisingly active in its domestic smartphone market nowadays while also slowly looking to improve the "promotion" of its latest handsets in Europe and the Middle East.
Although there are no words on the names, specs, features, or prices of the aforementioned "new 5G models" planned for Q2 2021 announcements, these will undoubtedly cater to the same audiences across the same regions. So, no, you probably shouldn't hold your breath for official US availability of any sort this year.
That would simply be a far too ambitious objective for a business that barely generated NT$493 million and NT$1.175 billion in March and Q1 2021 revenues respectively. That equates to a measly 17 million and 41 million US dollars or so, and in addition to smartphones, it includes VR headsets as well.
What's perhaps even more painful to see is that the company's microscopic March 2021 revenue result actually marked a 5.2 and 99.7 (!!!) percent improvement from the same figure reported in March 2020 and February 2021 respectively.
Overall, however, HTC started the year with a worse quarterly revenue score than an already modest first three months of 2020. But if you think about it, that actually makes the company's smartphone industry insistence even more encouraging for those nostalgic about the likes of 2013's HTC One or 2008's T-Mobile G1.
Basically, if HTC isn't throwing in the towel now, it may never do so.
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