HTC drops down the loo

Trouble just got worse

Troubled mobile phone maker HTC has just found that its woes have become a lot worse.

The latest HTC results, for its second quarter confirm another loss-making quarter for the smartphone and VR headset maker, with the Taiwanese company reporting revenue of$ 598 million for the quarter versus the $ 1.07 billion it made at the same time last year. This means that it has seen a drop of around 44 percent.

HTC reported a loss of $ 133 million in its second quarter, which ended 30 June.  At least it is not as bad as the revenue plunge than the company made in its first quarter when it was 64 per cent down, but it is still pretty grim. .

Revenues were up sequentially in the second quarter due to increasing shipments of its HTC 10 flagship smartphone and the HTC Vive, the company said.

HTC’s smartphone business unit is expected to reach breakeven in the third quarter of 2016 as the company will push sales of the HTC 10 to more markets, HTC said.

The company has been restructuring. It has diversified its business via a wearable and fitness tech partnership with Under Armor, and had a successful move into VR in collaboration with Valve. It’s certainly still early days for VR, but HTC is crediting the Vive VR rig with giving a boost to its brand and contributing to a 27 percent rise in revenues over Q1 this year.

The company is also touting “worldwide interest” and “sales momentum” for its HTC 10 smartphone, but isn’t breaking out any actual sales figures Still it is not clear how long HTC can continue to survive with results like this.