HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s largest maker of handsets running on Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system, expects second-quarter sales to grow between 8 percent and 11 percent year-on-year, or 19 percent to 22 percent quarter-on-quarter, to between NT$37.5 billion (US$1.12 billion) and NT$38.5 billion.
In addition, the maker of the world’s first Android platform smartphone anticipates slight improvements in its second-quarter gross margin to the range of 31 percent, compared to 30.6 percent in the first quarter.
“At this point, Windows Mobile is still the company’s primary focus because we believe in Microsoft Inc’s value proposition, and HTC has come a long way toward developing multiple user-friendly interface phones,” chief financial officer Joey Cheng (鄭慧明) said via teleconference yesterday.
Cheng said the two platforms were not mutually exclusive and that additional Android competition would translate into growing a bigger pie. For the full year, HTC plans to roll out a total of 15 handsets, he said.
For the first three months of the year, the handset maker shipped 2.4 million units and booked NT$31.59 billion in sales, registering 3 percent and 31.59 percent declines year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter respectively.
Meanwhile, first-quarter net profit came to NT$4.87 billion, sliding 39.7 percent from last quarter and 29.8 percent from the same period last year.
Cheng attributed the slide to first quarter product delays.
The company’s dividends for last year is NT$27 in cash dividend and 1.5 percent stock dividend per share, Cheng added.
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