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HTC shares crash, "brand, factories and buildings were worthless"

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R

Randolph Freelander

Member
That's a bummer. I like my One and was looking at getting another when I switch my service to a different provider in the months ahead (my Sprint contract just recently expired and I'm looking to move to prepaid).

I'll likely still get a One. Regardless of what happens to HTC, the phone will still work.
 
Y

Your Entertainer

Member
Horribly incompetent marketing. The M7 was straight up better than the S4 (I owned both) and it fell flat due to the way they handled it imo. I had a friend who worked for HTC and said he was embarrassed at how they were handling promotion at the time when "they were supposed to turn it all around".
 
R

Rich!

Member
Every single HTC I have ever owned has been fine for a few months then literally fell apart/ended up keeping a battery charge for a mere couple of hours at best.

Greatest example was the HTC One which I had to replace three times whilst on contract with the final one actually having its charging port burn out (used the stock charger)

Swapped that shit for a Sony Z2, never buying an HTC again. Absolutely shoddy, crappy hardware.
 
T

tearsintherain

Member
I always thought HTC was some weird spinoff brand of Samsung or something, never realized they were their own standalone company.

Cell phone market is brutal, seems like Apple and Samsung have almost everyone locked into their two brands with a smattering of stuff like LG and chinese companies taking the leftovers. Yet its insane how much money those two companies are making for what should be completely replacable and brand-irrelevent devices.

Blackberry stumbled and has become irrelevent, Microsoft paid billions for Nokia and seems to be on the verge of shutting them down, I haven't seen a Motorola device around a persons hands in years, its crazy.
 
N

neogaffer1

Banned
cross-post from other thread

neogaffer1 said:
Here's a basic run-down for those who may not know why HTC completely collapsed this year:

  • Three years ago, HTC started to flounder as sales of its flagships started to fall as Samsung's phones started to dominate the market. Previously, HTC was used to US carrier demands and typically created devices based on what carriers wanted, and then brought those devices abroad, alongside making other devices that never saw the US market. However, Samsung changed that by forcing carriers to allow it to adopt the Apple style of device production, where one "hero" device was the same across all carriers and all over the world. HTC saw this and realized they needed to adapt to a changing market. They introduced the One X for AT&T, where it was an exclusive. However, because it was an exclusive, that meant they had to rely on other designs and names to get it on the other carriers. Verizon had a Droid device (IIRC) and Sprint got an Evo--both of these were basically the One X, but customized for each carrier's demands. This approach failed, mostly due to the fact that nobody really understood that these were all supposed to be the same device, and due to a lack of marketing on HTC's part.
  • Two years ago, HTC streamlined again, and introduced the One. With a aluminum unibody, dual front firing speakers, an Ultrapixel camera and other high end features, it was a huge hit as Samsung's device for that year was a slight disappointment. They created a bigger focus on advertising this device and HTC found great success for a few months despite underwhelming camera results and short battery life...but after the launch profits started falling again, so HTC introduced the One mini and the One max, both of which flopped.
  • The next year, last year, HTC iterated on the original One with the One (M8)--the previous One had been codenamed M7 internally. This device continued the focus on great hardware design with even more metal, dual speakers, and in addition to Ultrapixel a duo camera was introduced. The duo camera seemed to be an unnecessary gimmick, and the camera continued to disappoint and, despite wide acclaim, profits started to fall again after the launch of this flagship. HTC realized it needed to expand outside of phones and started to focus on devices like the RE camera and the HTC Nexus 9 (a tablet). Both received middling reviews and neither of those particularly lit the world on fire, and HTC was still in trouble.
  • Fast forward to this year, and the One M9 was announced. This year around, it looked incredibly similar to the One M8, but due to a faulty SoC (the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810) it performed worse and had an even worse camera, despite a move away from Ultrapixel. The design was for the worse as well, as it was even more uncomfortable than any previous One device while looking worse than the last two phones. Sales crumbled of this device, to the point where a carrier in Canada stopped carrying the device altogether and part suppliers lowered shipments due to decreased demand.
One can easily see that the Vive partnership was just an attempt by HTC to further the move away from phones just like the RE camera and the (cancelled) RE fitness band. Since we keep hearing that HTC is pushing Valve to release the device this year while Valve seems a bit hesitant, one can see that they're counting on this device as a last hail mary to save the company.
Click to expand...
 
K

kmfdmpig

Member
Years of shit decisions will do that for you.

Had an HD2, which was a cool phone that was ahead of its time despite being on an outdated OS. Luckily I was able to get Android on it fairly easily, which made it good. Only their first HTC One really seemed appealing to me after that. Others all seemed to have a drawback compared to competition from Samsung/Sony/LG.
 
K

Keyser Soze

Member
htc1qnssf.jpg
 
R

Retrocore9

Banned
HTC has been the best smartphone manufacturer for years. Their build quality is fantastic and better then the iphone.

This is like hearing Ferrari is losing marketshare to me. I hope HTC can turn it around.
 
A

Alucrid

Banned
I really liked my DNA and M8, sad to hear. If they're depending on the Vive to save them...well, it was nice knowing you HTC.
 
G

GSG Flash

Nobody ruins my family vacation but me...and maybe the boy!
The M9 is destroying HTC. It was a terrible decision to release the same phone, design wise, 3 years in a row, especially after those sexy renders of the concept M9 were leaked.

I would have an M9 right now instead of the S6 Edge if HTC didn't fuck up so bad.

Cereal KiIIer said:
May they die soon.

I never hated a cellphone more than my M7.
Click to expand...

Hey now, the M7 was, and still is, a fucking awesome phone. I actually really miss the speakers from time to time, the speakers on the S6/Edge don't cut it.
 
S

samn

Member
I got a HTC Desire 601 for my dad. The power button broke, so he swapped it for a Moto G. He said the user interface of the latter was far, far easier to use.

As for their high end models, the lack of iterative improvements is astonishing compared to what Apple or even Samsung are doing. What the hell happened?

Incidentally, I had a Desire HD and One X, both broke due to inherent design flaws, I got no help from HTC and frankly they both sucked even with a stock Android ROM so I went back to iPhone.
 
N

neogaffer1

Banned
JBourne said:
I just bought an M9. Within the first week, I regretted trading in my S5.
Click to expand...

shoulda asked gaf, everybody would've told you that was a bad choice

GSG Flash said:
The M9 is destroying HTC. It was a terrible decision to release the same phone, design wise, 3 years in a row, especially after those sexy renders of the concept M9 were leaked.

I would have an M9 right now instead of the S6 Edge if HTC didn't fuck up so bad.



Hey now, the M7 was, and still is, a fucking awesome phone. I actually really miss the speakers from time to time, the speakers on the S6/Edge don't cut it.
Click to expand...

As a former M7 owner, it was a great fucking phone but with huge fucking issues. Not great battery life and the worthless garbage camera were the worst parts about it.
 
G

giga

Member
HTC, along with Sony, won't be making Android phones within the next 5 years.

Retrocore9 said:
HTC has been the best smartphone manufacturer for years. Their build quality is fantastic and better then the iphone.

This is like hearing Ferrari is losing marketshare to me. I hope HTC can turn it around.
Click to expand...
Ha. The M9 was crap.
 
T

The Abominable Snowman

Member
HTC is the father of half of these phone manufacturers. Damned shame. IMO, they weren't far from being a great phone manufacturer again a couple of years ago. They just needed to figure out what makes a premium phone a premium phone, and they couldn't.
 
S

SilentSoldier

Member
I switched from LG phones to HTC and I haven't looked back since. I love my M7 and was hoping to get an M8 when my contract expired. Looks like that won't be the case soon, :(
 
N

neogaffer1

Banned
SilentSoldier said:
I switched from LG phones to HTC and I haven't looked back since. I love my M7 and was hoping to get an M8 when my contract expired. Looks like that won't be the case soon, :(
Click to expand...

it depends from person to person, but in terms of android oems, imho:

moto/nexus
htc
sony
oneplus
samsung
lg
errybody else

ofc if you just look at the flagships for this year alone:

moto
samsung
oneplus
lg
sony
htc

the 810 really rekt everybody.
 
V

vctor182

Member
I had a M7 and it was really great, but the camera and that purple tint issue was awful. I tried to get a replacement from HTC since it seems it was a known issue but the kept referring from HTC US to HTC Mexico, so fuck them I sold the phone and got an Xperia Z1
 
O

Ollie Pooch

In a perfect world, we'd all be homersexual
The HTC One X was the only phone I've (tried) to return after purchase. One of the worst I've ever owned. Shit battery, shit camera, shit software. Ended up having to sell it on ebay, buy a Nexus 4 outright and wait out my contract. Eugh.
 
I

IceIpor

Member
I stopped supporting HTC when they unlocked their bootloader, but kept the Security Flag on.

I feel like most of the floundering companies would do better if they just took Google's approach of allowing the device to be completely unlocked and rooted if the user desired.
 
P

Polk

Member
tearsintherain said:
I always thought HTC was some weird spinoff brand of Samsung or something, never realized they were their own standalone company.
Click to expand...
Well, they started as OEM company for hire selling their smarphones (on Windows Mobile) under cariers' brands (SPV for Orange,MDA for TMobile). After Android got big they wanted to become premium brand.
 
T

The Abominable Snowman

Member
Polk said:
Well, they started as OEM company for hire selling their smarphones (on Windows Mobile) under cariers' brands (SPV for Orange,MDA for TMobile). After Android got big they wanted to become premium brand.
Click to expand...

So many manufacturers sunk trying to chase the premium/iPhone/flagship model. HTC should have seen it wasn't working from miles away.

Hope this is a warning for other manufacturers (Sony....) and a return to form for HTC.
 
N

neogaffer1

Banned
The Abominable Snowman said:
So many manufacturers sunk trying to chase the premium/iPhone/flagship model. HTC should have seen it wasn't working from miles away.

Hope this is a warning for other manufacturers (Sony....) and a return to form for HTC.
Click to expand...

they were one of the first trying to chase that model, and one of the early successes. they just squandered what little success they had by not innovating early enough. If an M7 like device came out a year earlier instead of the One X/One S with a decent marketing push they would be sitting pretty right now instead of on the brink of collapse.
 
S

samn

Member
The Abominable Snowman said:
So many manufacturers sunk trying to chase the premium/iPhone/flagship model. HTC should have seen it wasn't working from miles away.

Hope this is a warning for other manufacturers (Sony....) and a return to form for HTC.
Click to expand...

The reason they're chasing high end smartphones is that there's barely any profit in the other segments.
 
S

ShowDog

Member
Ollie Pooch said:
The HTC One X was the only phone I've (tried) to return after purchase. One of the worst I've ever owned. Shit battery, shit camera, shit software. Ended up having to sell it on ebay, buy a Nexus 4 outright and wait out my contract. Eugh.
Click to expand...

The One X was a piece of shit after about 4 months of use. Mine had the flash memory wear out and became mindbogglingly slow, and the wifi antenna separated from the mainboard. It was quite literally useless. I've never owned a more shoddily designed gadget for the price.
 
J

JustenP88

I earned 100 Gamerscore™ for collecting 300 widgets and thereby created Trump's America
They were so off and on. Made some good shit here and there but they never really seemed to capitalize on any of their good ideas. I loved my M8 until it started doing the weird vibrating thing.
 
C

CheesecakeRecipe

Stormy Grey
I loved my M7, with the exception of the awful camera. It's still running very well, though battery starved, to this day. I thought that was going to be the turnaround point for them, but HTC's squandered every opportunity it gave them to pick themselves back up.

Can't say I'm surprised, but it's a shame anyways.
 
J

Jazzy Network

Member
One M7 was the best designed android phone bar none. The software and other shit left much to be desired. With that said, I enjoyed my Nexus One and Droid Incredible when I had them back in the day. It's just too bad they are run by idiots.
 
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