HTC To Cut 15 Percent Of Workforce

Manufacturing.net ^ | Thu, 08/13/2015 - 1:39pm | Andy Szal, Digital Reporter

[robowombat]

(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File) Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC on Thursday announced plans to lay off 15 percent of its workforce — or about 2,300 people — amid weak demand and sales in China.

The cuts will be part of a "strategic realignment" after the company projected a net loss for the current quarter.

The plan will trim operating expenditures by 35 percent and shift the company's focus toward premium smartphones, virtual reality and connected lifestyle products.

"As we diversify beyond smartphones, we need a flexible and dynamic organization to ensure we can take advantage of all of the exciting opportunities in the connected lifestyle space,” CEO Cher Wang said in a statement.

HTC was once one of the largest makers of Android smartphones, but its market share plummeted from double digits to just 2 percent over the last few years amid increasing competition, particularly from Korea-based Samsung and Chinese companies Xiaomi and Huawei.

[KeyLargo]

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[Terry L Smith]

It’s not HTC’s fault.
When i look at all the options of ‘smartphone upgrading’ through ATT, all i get are lists on lists of iphones, new and reconditioned, at with a $xxx.xx price tag, to boot.

[RayChuang88]

That’s why I have an iPhone 6 (64 GB Space Gray). I want a phone with the biggest ecosystem of hardware and software support, and the iPhone is just about the best out there. Android would be there but the fragmentation of the phone operating system, especially with the use of third-party “skins,” makes most Android phones obsolete within a couple of years of buying the phone.

[kingu]

You’ve got a choice, you can pay for your phone outright, or you can pay even more for it monthly with ‘free’ upgrades.

Gotta say, smartest choice I ever made was switching to the Nexus line and cutting the line of ‘free upgrades’ - cell phone bill went down over $60 a month. That and when there’s an issue, my phone is usually updated within days, vs most likely never on Samsung and within 180 days on HTC.

You can pick up a Nexus 5 for under $200 off contract if you hunt carefully.

[Terry L Smith]

dear ray,

I feel sorry for ya.
Apple????
Ain’t Apple up enough people’s butts with all thier products, and monopolistic attitudes?

[RayChuang88]

There’s a reason why I have an iPhone 6: when I first got my Phone, it was running iOS 8.0. And I was able to update to iOS 8.0.2, 8.1.x versions, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4 and just today 8.4.1. Meanwhile, most Android phones don’t update to the newer versions of Android, which can be an issue with resolving security issues.

[rmlew]

I blame HTC for being a Samsung and Apple clone.
Plenty of us smartphone users like keybroads and android devices. Imagine in HTC had gone after this 10% of the market with a modern phone with a 4-5 inch screen and keyboard.

[Terry L Smith]

dear ray,

the circuitous cycle of that demonic word in gadgetry - ‘update’ - is what drove me FROM Apple, because the cycle of ‘update’ runs into the wall of ‘physical circuit restrictions’, i.e., the machine could not hold enough RAM to fully function, anymore.

IIRC, the iphone owner cannot access the RAM slot, to increase the RAM size, therefore, the future of the physical electronic circuitry architecture is already obsolete, making it a necessity to ‘upgrade’ your apple phone to the next level of architecture, and so on, and so on.

[RayChuang88]

But yet, thanks to Apple's VERY tight control of both the hardware and software design, they can do things with only 1 GB of RAM on the iPhone 6/6+ that many Android phones with 2 GB of RAM couldn't do. Indeed, an iPhone 5 from 2012 running the current iOS 8.4.1 (just released yesterday) is still a very good phone by 2015 standards, even if it lacks Touch ID and NFC found on the iPhone 6/6+ models.

[Terry L Smith]

dear ray,
that may be nice for you, and the younger generation.
i do not want a phone with touch id, or, if i read it right, where you can tap a phone to exchange data. i don’t need a phone with a recognition program, because i’m not that lazy.

I’m retired, so why do i need all these programs, geared for nitwits, and locked in so i cannot take them off the phone. i don’t use social media ... i don’t take pictures of my food, i eat it. I, also, believe that one’s life should be held sacred and private, and not wasted before the swine of the world.

remember, this is a phone, it is not a bona fide camera. i’ve used photographic equipment since the 1970’s, and developed my own film, as well.

the current radio ads screaming about some internet radio, “oh, you can turn your phone into a radio!’ .. the FM radio is already there. i’ve been a subscriber to internet radio for 10 years already, so this new thing has not re-invented the automobile.

Remember, this is a phone, not a word processing machine, so why do i need ‘an office suite’? i’ve been writing, before typewriters went electric, and have been keeping my own accounting books, in pen and ink since the ‘60’s.

Granted, the phone has no cord to tether you to a house, nor to an answering machine - which may fail at a bad moment - and may have a buttonless interface. But it is just a phone.