HTC revealed that they suffered a $261 Million dollar loss in the second quarter of 2015, HTC suffered massively in terms of sales, it's newest flagship was supposed to carry on from the success of the HTC one M7 and One M8 which ultimately took HTC out of loss and into a tiny profit but the One M9 fell short of those expectations. What could be the reason for that? And what HTC might or should do to fix that? Read on to find out.
HTC came to the stage in 2013 with a brilliant smart phone a true Android phone which could go head to head against the iPhone in terms of design. The HTC One from 2013 also known as the One M7 offered a clean and smooth interface from the inside with HTC sense 5 which felt as smooth and fast as a Google Nexus device, with our use of it in 2013 we experienced almost no lag at all, it also featured a clean and stylish 70% aluminum Uni-body design that we absolutely adored but that wasn't all M7 had great speakers or as HTC calls them Boom sound, it a had a new unique take on the traditional camera as it offered larger pixels, with all that HTC kept providing continuous updates to the software like Android 4.3, 4.4, Sense 5.5 and later Sense 6 and finally Android 5.0 lollipop. Come 2014 and HTC went with a more refining approach they released the HTC One M8, a phone worthy of being called the successor of the One M7. HTC didn't change things by large on the M8 because why change what already works and is loved by the customers, they kept the Boom-sound speakers, the Ultrapixel camera and put it in an all aluminum unibody design which was both similar and different from the M7 and was more curvy and this time 90% metal. They also included a new depth sensor camera on the back of the phone to allow for special bokeh like pictures to be taken and what'd you know the M8 was received even better than the M7, yes better than the M7 which had claimed many phone of the year awards, in fact it was so well received it took HTC out of loss and into a profit. Then what happened after the One M8? Why is HTC in loss again with the M9 in 2015?
Well they say with great power comes great responsibility we guess that the similar is true that with great reputation come great expectations and responsibility. HTC had a great year with the One M8, now 2014 was drawing to a close and everyone was over hyped for the HTC One M9. People were expecting nothing less than perfect from HTC or at least something worthy enough to be the successor of the HTC One M7 and One M8. Time sure flew by and after eating up all those Christmas treats and grabbing up all those holiday sales offers we were officially into 2015 with leaks and rumors of all the new smart phones swirling around including the HTC One M9 we read many rumors and leaks that it will have a similar design, Boom-sound speakers and will go back to traditional 20 MP camera for photo snapping. Well that's where the problem occurs HTC got its fame for the One series form thinking out of the box and not jumping on the same bandwagon as other manufacturers and by making phones which stands out. HTC were using a 20 MP camera on the M9 their are plenty of good 20 MP cameras like the ones from the Sony Xperia Z series but if it were all that HTC might have gotten away with it the camera offered no optical image stabilization and captured blown out photos.
The phone looked like a shadow of the M7 from 2013 with no major changes in design, the ventilation was bad the beast of a processor (Snapdragon 810) inside kept making the phone heat up. HTC basically just went too much main stream and didn't design the phone with enough time as it seemed. There were also leaks of the HTC One M9+ which featured same specs, same camera (except it had a circular lens), same design and a fingerprint reader that looked like it was copy pasted from a Samsung device and appeared hideous to many users. HTC was back to being just another Android company that just goes with all the trends created by the likes of Samsung and others instead of creating new ones. The users certainly gave their feedback in terms of online responses as well as smart phone sales, to make matters worse Samsung which was always mocked for making plastic phones released the Galaxy S6 with a premium design and glass back while manufactures like Huawei were taking up low end smart phone sales from HTC which ultimately led to HTC going back into loss. So what now?
HTC needs to realize the fact that it's no longer alone in the premium built Android smart phone market but even that aside, like the title reads HTC needs to go back to 2013 yes 2013. HTC needs to learn again how it made the M7 so successful and how the M8 took it out of loss and into a profit. HTC needs start being HTC again by not being a member of common flock bandwagon. HTC needs to create unique designs, unique hardware with more variations like it did from M7 to M8 with duo camera, it needs to be bold and confident in the new features it introduces for instance the reason it removed the Ultrapixel camera was that some users didn't understand the difference between regular 4 mega pixels and Ultrapixels because the average user thinks more mega pixels mean better quality, but there are also users who loved the Ultrapixel camera. HTC should have done more marketing like Apple and Samsung but we all know that's not what HTC does, they believe in the "let the product speak" strategy, but time has come for HTC to change that and do more marketing. HTC also needs to diversify as the M9 proved it can't rely on a single market specially one with so much competition. HTC's CEO Cher Wang has already announced that HTC will look into new products as well like for example it's virtual reality headset in partnership with Valve. We most certainly know HTC will make some good changes and bounce back like it always has but the HTC One M10 will only be successful if it can provide a unique design and new features as well as new innovations like the One M7 did when it launched in 2013.
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