Shares of HTC Corp. tumbled 6.9 percent Tuesday on
the Taiwan Stock Exchange after the smartphone maker gave a
pessimistic forecast for first-quarter revenues as it plans no new
model releases until the end of this month.
The company predicted revenues would slide as much as 38 percent
from the same quarter last year and would range from 65 billion to 70
billion Taiwan dollars (2.2 to 2.37 billion U.S. dollars) as its older
models are being outsold by Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4S and Samsung
Electronics Co.'s Galaxy S2.
Closing at a price of 513 Taiwan dollars per share, the stock has
shed 57 percent since its peak in April.
HTC released fourth-quarter earnings a month ago, showing that
sales declined by 25.3 percent from the third quarter and 2.49 percent year-on-year to 101.42 billion Taiwan dollars.
Net profit at 10.94 billion Taiwan dollars suffered a
41.4 percent quarterly decline and a 26 percent drop from the same
period last year.
Chief financial officer Winston Yung attributed the poor
performance to disappointing sales for the company's high-end phone
models that feature fourth-generation long-term evolution technology,
which gives users a faster download speed than 3G. HTC also cut
prices on many of its current phones as it prepares for the release
of new models.
HTC's declining revenues come at a time when its main rivals,
Apple and Samsung, are reporting robust results.
