HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday announced it is to offer discounts for its virtual reality (VR) headset, the HTC Vive, to customers in Europe as part of the annual Black Friday shopping days.
The discounts of ￡150 (US$199) and up are to be available from authorized Vive distributors in Europe and on Vive.com from tomorrow to Monday, the company said.
When Euorpean consumers spend ￡599 to buy a Vive, they will also receive an earphone device — the Duluxe Audio strap — designed exclusively for the headset, as well as a free copy of the Google-developed VR painting app Tilt Brush, a redemption code for the game Fallout 4 VR and a pre-order code for DOOM VFR.
Viveport, Vive’s app store, will also offer discounts for Black Friday.
Vive Studios, a Vive content developer, will offer discounts of up to 75 percent during Black Friday, HTC said.
The Vive is part of HTC’s efforts to diversify from its core smartphone market, where it faces tough competition from Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co and many Chinese smartphone brands.
HTC unveiled the Vive in March 2015 at the Mobile World Congress and global sales began in April last year, but it has continued to report losses.
Its VR business contributes a small fraction of the company’s revenue, while competition in the global smartphone market continues to hurt the vendor’s bottom line, analysts say.
HTC in the third quarter reported a net loss for the 10th consecutive quarter. The loss hit NT$3.1 billion (US$103.3 million), topping the NT$1.95 billion loss recorded in the second quarter.
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