HTC went head-to-head with Samsung this year, launching its new flagship, the One M9, at the exact same time as its Korean competitor. HTC came away from the duel much more worse for wear than expected, as the Galaxy S6 turned heads and triumphed with high sales right after launch. Now, HTC has released its financial report for April, and it’s the bleakest news the Taiwanese company has had in six years.
“Revenue for last month was weaker than expected, which was due to poor M9 demand.”
HTC posted NT$13.5 billion ($440 million) in revenue for April, which is a huge 33 percent decrease from March. The figure was also a whopping 39 percent lower than the revenue HTC posted during the same period last year. To make matters worse, this is the lowest monthly revenue for April that HTC has reported since 2009, when it made NT$11.4 billion.
HTC’s One M9 flagship, which was supposed to raise the company’s fortunes and increase revenue substantially in 2015, wasn’t even on sale in March, and yet HTC managed to post higher revenue without its flagship on store shelves. Many analysts cited the One M9’s failure to appeal to customers as the prime reason for April’s low revenue.
“Revenue for last month was weaker than expected, which was due to poor M9 demand,” an anonymous Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co. analyst told the Taipei Times. “HTC might have underestimated the Qualcomm [Snapdragon] 810 processor’s thermal issue, and this has resulted in poor reviews and concern from carriers.”
Indeed, in our review of the One M9, we noted a marked heat increase during heavy-duty processing tasks, video streaming, and app downloading. The battery life also suffered dramatically, and we came away disappointed by the device on the whole. Although it’s hardly conclusive evidence, the fact that LG opted to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor in its G4 instead of the 810 seems to indicate that the overheating issue is very real and troublesome.
Additionally, shortly after HTC introduced the M9, it also showed off the M9+ for China and other markets. The M9+ sports more high-end specs and looks to be more appealing than the standard M9 that made its way stateside. While the launch of that model may help HTC’s sales increase, it seems that the original One M9 is something of a failure at this point.
Analysts appear to be pessimistic about HTC’s chances to win over customers in 2015, regardless of the other models the company releases this year. BNP Paribas predicts that HTC will ship just 18 million smartphone units in 2015, which is a decline of 13 percent compared with 2014’s figures.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.