HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday expressed its gratitude for all the support it has received from shareholders and investors.
The leading Taiwanese smartphone maker issued the statement after the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that HTC — whose price has dropped more than 50 percent since the beginning of the year — had attracted a prominent investor.
The journal said Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai (黎智英) had quietly purchased an estimated 2 percent stake in the Taiwanese firm over the past two months.
“We appreciate support from all our investors and will continue working hard,” the HTC statement said.
The journal quoted Mark Simon, a spokesman for Lai, as saying: “HTC is undervalued and there is an opportunity for growth.”
Based on HTC’s average share price over the past two months, Lai, the founder of Next Media Ltd (壹傳媒), must have invested NT$2.3 billion (US$78.22 million) to NT$2.4 billion in the company.
For HTC, Lai’s investment should be good news, as it shows that big-name investors still have confidence in it, the journal said.
Nevertheless, Lai’s stock purchase could signal that “HTC could soon face more activist shareholders as investors seek changes in the firm, which has been struggling to reverse sliding sales,” the report said.
Separately, HTC yesterday declined to comment on US-based Rockstar Consortium’s filing of patent infringement lawsuits against it.
“HTC does not comment on cases that have already entered legal proceedings,” the company said in a statement.
According to a Reuters report, Rockstar, which has bought thousands of Nortel patents, filed a barrage of patent lawsuits in Texas on Thursday against cellphone manufacturers and vendors, including Google Inc, Samsung Electronics Co, Huawei Co (華為) and HTC, in the US Eastern District Court of Texas.
Rockstar is jointly owned by Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry, Ericsson and Sony, the report said.
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