For a man who spent 18 years at HTC turning smartphones from mere business tools into ubiquitous consumer gadgets, Peter Chou knows a thing or two about nurturing new product categories. In fact, he had already started his second chapter at the compa...
When we last met Futuretown's CEO Johan Yang back in February, his startup appeared to be merely a virtual reality game studio, with its popular title Cloudlands: VR Minigolf currently owning 30 percent of the HTC Vive market share. Today, the compan...
Digital Domain, the visual effects studios that brought you feature films like the Transformers series, the X-Men series, Iron Man 3 and Her, has announced that it's acquiring an 85 percent stake in Hong Kong's Post Production Company Limited and its...
HTC's unaudited results for Q2 2013 showed a sign of hope, but in today's call for the Q3 guidance, the Taiwanese company expects next quarter's revenue to be in the range of $1.67 billion to $2 billion, with an operating profit of anything from $0 down to... well, a margin of -minus 8 percent, which would equate to a horrible loss. This is also a notable drop from last year's $2.4 billion revenue and $168 million operating profit.
CEO Peter Chou blames this decline on the higher cost structure (bill of materials and operating costs) and the clearance of aged inventory in the channel, but he hopes that Q3 will be the bottom in terms of HTC's profitability. CFO Chialin Chang added that his team has a few actions in place to help restore the company to profitability very soon.
HTC's attempts to dig itself out of its financial quagmire has seen some high-profiledepartures hogging the headline space beside its high profile devices. The latest boardroom shuffle concentrates on the company's American operations, which will now be headed up by former global sales head Jason Mackenzie (above right, playing rock-paper-scissors with Brad). At the same time, the company is establishing a new "Emerging Devices" unit, designed to focus on new products and "global distribution strategies," whatever that means.
Is this theOne? That's pretty much the question we put to HTC's Peter Chou, whose company has had a tough time battling other mobile giants with its original One series. The CEO was kind enough to have a little chat with us after the One launch -- although his responses were often vague. We covered topics from what went wrong last year, how the new flagship device will bring the company back in the game, and where does HTC see itself from the perspective of consumers. Read on for the highlights as well as the full video clip after the break.
Looking back at the good old days since the original One series launch, Chou once again acknowledged the fact that his company didn't do so well with marketing. "We had a few great devices, a lot of innovation, but we just need to let people know all of these HTC innovations. So today we are introducing the HTC One and that's exactly what we're going to do," said Chou. The CEO is also confident that his new flagship device has what it takes to deter consumers from the competition. "HTC will be offering consumers a great phone with great experience, these qualities are non-compromised. We are very confident that consumers will appreciate these innovations, experience and quality."
"We just need to let people know all of these HTC innovations."
In the face of the likes of Samsung and many Chinese manufacturers, Chou believes that HTC's ability to work very closely with partners is a key to success -- something that the company's been very proud of since its OEM days. On the same subject, Chou also hinted at the changes that happened inside HTC not so long ago to help it stay in the game. "We are driving changes inside the company, pushing the innovation and pushing the execution."
As any executive would do at a launch event, Chou went on to pimp the highlights of the One: BlinkFeed (live feed of ambient information), BoomSound (dual front-facing loudspeaker) and Zoe (multimedia gallery and editor on steroids). Again, the exec emphasized the importance of great experience, especially with Zoe where the user doesn't need to do much, and yet they still get this "awesome emotion and personality" with the movies they share with people. "We think that this is a great way of providing new experience to smartphone users," Chou added.
"The megapixel myth is the wrong way to go."
We went on to ask how HTC will handle the tricky task of convincing consumers into the low-res (4-megapixel) but more sensitive and efficient UltraPixel camera, to which we were given a familiar response. "The megapixel myth is the wrong way to go, so what really matters is to give you much better image quality with great innovative, exciting experience. So that's where we're focusing on."
Interestingly, the One doesn't come with a microSD slot (as featured on the Japanese and Asian Butterfly variants) and Qi wireless charging (as featured on the Verizon versions of some HTC flagships), but Chou wasn't too keen on addressing these drawbacks, and neither was he up for talking about the seemingly smaller battery size when compared to some of the competition. "Our differentiation is very, very clear," Chou said. Of course, we shall see about that when we eventually get to review the One.
Sharif Sakr and Mat Smith contributed to this interview.
Guess who's super excited about HTC's upcoming flagship phone? Why, Peter Chou, of course! At the company's year end party in Taipei earlier today, the CEO went on stage to thank the M7 team for working overtime last week in order to finalize the device this week, according to cnYES. Surprisingly, Chou then decided to openly play with the yet-to-be-released M7. "This event today is a great opportunity for testing [the camera]. I was still testing it just now," the exec is seen saying in NextTV's clip (available at the source link), followed by him whipping out a silver edition and a black edition of the phone.
While the video clips available aren't of decent enough quality for some detailed close-ups of the M7, we can just about make out a super slim body with two distinctive lines on the back -- nothing quite like the leaks we've seen so far. Judging by the size, it does seem to match up with the rumored 4.7-inch screen size, but that's all we have for now. HTC's chairwoman Cher Wang added that she looks forward to launching the phone later this month, and naturally, so do we. After the break we have a clip of Chou enthusiastically shouting "M7" a few times with his homies -- it's OK, feel free to join along.
Peter Chou has gone on the record with the Wall Street Journal blaming his company's rough financial performance last year on insufficient marketing. Speaking about HTC's competitors, and presumably about Samsung in particular, he described them as "too strong and very resourceful, pouring lots of money into marketing." He was candid about the fact that, relatively speaking, he doesn't have a great deal of cash at hand to counter rival publicity, but instead puts his faith in having more "unique products" -- possibly referring to phones like the 1080p Droid DNA. Overall, he said that the "the worst for HTC has probably passed" and that 2013 will be "not too bad." Which is about as cautious as optimism can get.
Love you some Windows Phone? Big fan of HTC? Well, then, we imagine this has been a good week for you! If you missed our coverage from New York as it happened, first of all, shame on you. But, we'll forgive you, and as a special treat even point you to a video of the whole event online. Simply head past the break for the goods, and if you don't want to know what happens, don't click on any of the earlier links in this post. Too late for spoilers? Okay, they announce new phones!
HTC's Peter Chou is having his own "burning platform" moment after sending a company-wide email, leaked to Bloomberg, entitled "We are coming back." The CEO, shocked at recent sales dips has talked of a company lacking "decision, strategic direction or [a] sense of urgency" and requested that employees should "kill bureaucracy." He praised the success of the well-lauded One X, but said that the company's own "processes, rules and norms" could be stumbling blocks, instead urging employees to "follow rules and criteria, but don't let small things kill the major goals." The missive has already been confirmed as real by an HTC spokesperson, who probably promptly burned a stack of TPS reports to demonstrate their commitment.
For a man who spent 18 years at HTC turning smartphones from mere business tools into ubiquitous consumer gadgets, Peter Chou knows a thing or two about nurturing new product categories. In fact, he had already started his second chapter at the compa...
When we last met Futuretown's CEO Johan Yang back in February, his startup appeared to be merely a virtual reality game studio, with its popular title Cloudlands: VR Minigolf currently owning 30 percent of the HTC Vive market share. Today, the compan...
Digital Domain, the visual effects studios that brought you feature films like the Transformers series, the X-Men series, Iron Man 3 and Her, has announced that it's acquiring an 85 percent stake in Hong Kong's Post Production Company Limited and its...
