HTC Trainwreck Continues, Q3 Earnings Forecast Slashed 30 Percent

From DailyTech: The chief executive of embattled Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp. (TPE:2498), Peter Chou, tried his best to find the silver-lining to his company's latest financials report. He remarked, "My leadership team continues to focus on execution. We are seeing expected results as we fill the channels and meet demand for the new HTC One. As we broaden our focus to include a new member of the HTC One family, the recently announced One mini, we are looking forward to delivering great products and results in 2H."

The HTC report was a double feature, confirming the miserable Q2 2013 results, and predicting an even worse Q3 2013.

In Q2, HTC took in $70.7B TWD ($2.35B USD) for the quarter versus a Bloomberg analyst consensus of $72.8T TWD ($2.42B USD). Net revenue (profit) was $1.25B TWD ($41.5M USD), well short of the $2.17B TWD ($72.0M USD) Bloomberg-surveyed analysts predicted.

But the company doesn't sound very optimistic about sales. It estimates they could sink another 30 percent in Q3 2013, forecasting revenue between T$50B ($1.67B USD) and T$60B ($2.00B USD). That terrible forecast was a shocker to analysts who predicted T$72.7B ($2.43B USD) in a survey of 21 analysts by Bloomberg, and a substantial drop from last year's Q3 revenue of NT$70.2B ($2.34B USD). A loss seems likely for the quarter, given the razor-thin profit margin in Q2,

HTC -- once the top U.S. smartphone seller -- has been on a downward slide for eight straight quarters now, with little relief.

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