Taiwanese tech giant facing profitability struggles

Taiwanese firm HTC just can’t seem to catch a break right now. Preliminary Q2 results in July predicted its business would return to the red, and, now those loses have been confirmed with the quarter’s official figures. And as a result, the company is preparing to “streamline” its business significantly and put out phones that people will actually want to buy.

According to TechCrunch, the company recorded a NT$8 billion (US$252 million) operating loss for Q2 2015 on revenue of NT$33.0 billion (US$1,042 billion). HTC CFO and president of global sales Chialin Chang admitted that sales were weak because consumers “prefer more fashionable phones” to those which HTC offers.

HTC, which suffered last quarter with disappointing sales in China, is planning to release new devices before the end of the year as it focuses on profitability rather than market share, Chang said.

HTC’s CFO affirmed that “a classic version” of the company’s flagship One M9 that’s more “trendy” is in the works, alongside another model(s) with differentiated features.