Smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) has reported another quarterly net loss in the third quarter of the year, although its gross margin continued to improve.
In a statement on Tuesday, HTC said that it reported a net loss of NT$770 million (US$27.63 million) in the July-to-September period, higher than the NT$550 million net loss a quarter earlier.
Hurt by its struggling smartphone business, HTC has run a net loss every quarter since the second quarter of 2015, except for the first quarter of 2018, when an asset sale helped it post a quarterly net profit.
Photo courtesy of HTC Corp via CNA
Its losses per share in the third quarter rose for the first time in five quarters to NT$0.94, from NT$0.68 in the second quarter, as it continued to encounter stiff competition in the global smartphone market.
However, HTC’s gross margin — the difference between revenue and cost of goods sold — continued to climb in the third quarter to 31.6 percent from 29.9 percent in the second quarter.
In addition, HTC’s operating loss fell to NT$880 million in the third quarter from NT$1.05 billion in the second quarter, helped by a slightly improved operating margin — the difference between sales, the cost of goods sold and operating expenses — of minus-65.8 percent, compared with minus-77.8 percent in the second quarter.
Analysts said that the improving gross margin largely reflected HTC’s efforts to diversify its product mix and develop its virtual reality business to take pressure off its lackluster smartphone sales.
In September alone, HTC posted consolidated sales of NT$601 million, up 64 percent from a year earlier.
It was the company’s second-highest monthly sales figure for the year, behind its NT$664 million in June.
The increase in September sales came after the company unveiled the HTC Vive Pro 2 virtual reality (VR) headset.
Still, HTC’s consolidated sales for the third quarter fell by 0.7 percent from a quarter earlier to NT$1.34 billion.
HTC, which launched its first VR headset — the HTC Vive — in 2015, has seen rising demand for its VR gadgets amid a booming stay-at-home economy.
The latest VR gadget from HTC — the Vive Flow — went on sale in Taiwan on Monday.
The lightweight, compact immersive glasses, weighing no more than 189g, have an expansive 100° field of view, 3.2K resolution, a 75 Hertz refresh rate and full 3D spatial audio that can also connect to external Bluetooth earphones, the company said.
Analysts have said that the portable Vive Flow is HTC’s attempt to embrace the so-called “metaverse” concept talked up by Facebook Inc chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg since July.
The metaverse — a term coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 book Snow Crash — refers to a digital world where people can move between devices and communicate in a virtual environment.
Charles Huang (黃昭穎), general manager for the HTC Vive in the Asia-Pacific region, said that the Vive Flow is expected to go on sale in other countries later in the fourth quarter or in the first quarter of next year.
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
STABLE DEMAND: Delta supplies US clients in the aerospace, defense and machinery segments, and expects second-half sales to be similar to the first half Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) expects its US automation business to remain steady in the second half, with no signs of weakening client demand. With demand from US clients remaining solid, its performance in the second half is expected to be similar to that of the first half, Andy Liu (劉佳容), general manager of the company’s industrial automation business group, said on the sidelines of the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show in Taipei on Wednesday. The company earlier reported that revenue from its automation business grew 7 percent year-on-year to NT$27.22 billion (US$889.98 million) in the first half, accounting for 11 percent
A German company is putting used electric vehicle batteries to new use by stacking them into fridge-size units that homes and businesses can use to store their excess solar and wind energy. This week, the company Voltfang — which means “catching volts” — opened its first industrial site in Aachen, Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders. With about 100 staff, Voltfang says it is the biggest facility of its kind in Europe in the budding sector of refurbishing lithium-ion batteries. Its CEO David Oudsandji hopes it would help Europe’s biggest economy ween itself off fossil fuels and increasingly rely on climate-friendly renewables. While
RSS