[texazzpete]

HTC made just $34 million last quarter, its lowest profit since 2004

Despite Peter Chou's recent bout of hopefulness, the Taiwanese manufacture says it took home just NT$1 billion ($34 million) in net income in Q4 of 2012 -- which is less than a tenth of what it made in the same quarter of 2011

Seems Android is fast becoming a bloodbath for any OEM not named Samsung...or the local Asian players like ZTE, Huawei and Lenovo.

LG, HTC, Sony, Motorola are struggling to turn a profit. Of these, only HTC are making profits.

Clearly, it seems RIM made the right choice to go with QNX for BB10, despite the strident calls for them to adopt Android as a ready-made OS. As it stands, nothing on android can stop the Samsung juggernaut; the Galaxy brand has hit iphone-esque levels of brand popularity and people will shun most other Android phones in 2013 for the upcoming S4 and Note III.

[SlcCorrado]

Agreed. And with Samsung moving away... I think its looking good for RIM

[TheStoof]

They didn't sell less because of Android. They sold less because their phones are complete garbage, and they modified Android to be unusable on their phones.

[Tre Lawrence]

They didn't sell less because of Android. They sold less because their phones are complete garbage, and they modified Android to be unusable on their phones.

EXACTLY.

Even HTC itself acknowledged its mismanagement. I'm shocked it made that much. But think about it... how did the company that truly turned the smartphone world on it's head using Gingerbread on the original EVO come to such a pass? LOL. Locked bootloaders did it.

Just three years ago, Samsung was the laughing stock of the Android world. That's what the Moment and faulty GPS chips will do to you. In any case, Samsung and HTC have changed places. I think Samsung has/had three advantages: 1] it has more cash to diversify than HTC 2} It improved it's build quality, while HTC started locking bootloaders, and 3] Sammy was smart enough to make a flagship available on EVERY major carrier. Simple genius.

Having said all this, I think BB10 was the right move for RIM. We'll see if I am right.

[Tre Lawrence]

Agreed. And with Samsung moving away... I think its looking good for RIM

You don't believe Samsung is hitching it's whole wagon to Tizen or bada anytime soon, do you?

[TheStoof]

You don't believe Samsung is hitching it's whole wagon to Tizen or bada anytime soon, do you?

I think going with Tizen is a bad move unless they can magically get developers to move to Tizen or at least port them.

[Tre Lawrence]

I think going with Tizen is a bad move unless they can magically get developers to move to Tizen or at least port them.

Yep, Samsung isn't that crazy. I think it is logical to have a long term alternate strategy, but in the near to mediom term, I am sure it'll stick with what makes it money. Forking Android is more probable.

[texazzpete]

EXACTLY.

Even HTC itself acknowledged its mismanagement. I'm shocked it made that much. But think about it... how did the company that truly turned the smartphone world on it's head using Gingerbread on the original EVO come to such a pass? LOL. Locked bootloaders did it.

Just three years ago, Samsung was the laughing stock of the Android world. That's what the Moment and faulty GPS chips will do to you. In any case, Samsung and HTC have changed places. I think Samsung has/had three advantages: 1] it has more cash to diversify than HTC 2} It improved it's build quality, while HTC started locking bootloaders, and 3] Sammy was smart enough to make a flagship available on EVERY major carrier. Simple genius.

The flaw in your argument is that the people who care about 'locked bootloaders' represent less than 5 - 10% of the market.
most members of the public that shuffle into the AT&T or Best Buy store don't care about locked bootloaders or sealed batteries.
The One X has excellent build quality, great looks and a screen that surpassed anything in the market until the 1080p screens came out in Q4. Yet all it took was Samsung holding a press conference to announce the SIII, releasing a few benchmarks and the buying public started rejecting the One X.


To be fair, the mediocre battery life of the One X didn't do it any favours.

Another mistake HTC made was listening to the wrong crowd. They knew how inefficient the Tegra 3 was for battery life but still went on with a slim phone with a small battery because "Surveys showed them that people wanted thinner phones" according to one of their key execs. The same folks turned against HTC and bought the S3 when the battery life turned out to be crap.

Samsung's MASSIVE advertisement blitz during the olympics really turned the tide for them. It'll be tough for any other OEM to make a tidy profit at the high end on Android, IMHO.

[scalemaster34]

I think going with Tizen is a bad move unless they can magically get developers to move to Tizen or at least port them.

Tizen isn't for the masses, but Samsung wants a basic smartphone UI that can be on VERY low cost phones in developing markets. Most of these markets are not big on Apps or Ecosystems so no real need for developers.

As to the original post... If RIM had gone with Android, it probable would have taken them just as long to get it to work securely with their networks.
And as a Hardware Manufacture, RIM can not compete with anyone on cost... they have to provide a unique platform to be competitive.

[Tre Lawrence]

Tex, LOL, I have personal beef with locked bootloaders, as I own an EVO LTE. The rooting process was convoluted. The percentages are fairly small, but I do think the development/hacking community was one HTC eventually missed. I don't disagree with your other points. The One X had serious momentum, and HTC didn't run with it.

Samsung did show that media blitzing can help, especially when you have a decent device.

[FSeverino]

They didn't sell less because of Android. They sold less because their phones are complete garbage, and they modified Android to be unusable on their phones.

although this is true it does bring up the question of 'what is more important?' in terms of a good OS or a good handset. The iphone5 was not the greatest improvement over the 4S, and the OS is the ONLY thing that I am hearing in terms of people sticking with Apple. So, yes, the HTC phones may not be that good... but even if they were good would people still choose an average Android phone over an average phone with a better OS?

This question is VERY important to RIM because it looks like they wont be adding crazy specs to the phones (which is ok when using QNX and the UI of BB10) and that may turn some people away. Why would people buy a phone with 2 cores when they can have an android with 4? It has to be the OS, and that has to be what RIM pushes more than anything. BB10/QNX is the new/great feature of these pones, not any physical piece or part.

[TRlPPlN]

I think going with Tizen is a bad move unless they can magically get developers to move to Tizen or at least port them.

why would it a bad move? Samsung will more than likely use Tizen in all their consumer products which goes beyond the smart phone.

[ovi08]

If HTC wants to make money on Android or if any other manufacturer wants to make money on Android, it is so simple.
1. Just use the stock Android. There is no need to differentiate your OS compared to others. Just make different phones to sell.
Sony has learned this which is why they are allowing future Sony Android phones to be flashed to the stock OS.
As a BB fanatic, I hope the manufactures keep making their OS.

[mundell_eb]

But Sammy isn't only going with Tizen, its going with Windows Phone as well. That could prove to be a turning point for wp8, but may hurt Android in the long run, because their main manufacturer is not going all out for them anymore. I think HTCs profits also lie in future wp devices. Google still has Motorola, LG and Sony to count on, but if Sammy changes its flagship to wp8(not happening soon) I think Google has some problems because the average consumer doesn't know about the other phones. But all in all I think RIM did a good job not going Android or wp8 or making bb10 open source

[ynomrah]

They didn't sell less because of Android. They sold less because their phones are complete garbage, and they modified Android to be unusable on their phones.

This so much. People aren't f---king stupid. If you payed attention to htc's 2011 lineup, it was filled with pretty much all crap. People didn't forget this, and they suffered for it in 2012. Not to mention they suffer from not being able to release devices seamlessly (having the one x exclusive to at&t is unacceptable if you want to be sucessful).

Samsung isn't winning this race because their name. It's because they are making the best damn devices. Period. They are doing everything correct to appeal to as many people as possible. They have timely updates, awesome socs, pretty good ui skin, awesome developer support, and support for removable battery (which they seem to be the only oem allowing that still along with sd card slots). Not to mention devices with nice batteries and awesome battery life in general.

Definitely not a fluke.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2

[Banco]

What it does show is how astonishingly rapidly this sector changes. And why saying that any particular company is doomed is ridiculous, or saying any particular company is a fixture for success is equally daft. In all cases the answer is "give it a couple of years". Everyone's only as good as their current product.

[Sith_Apprentice]

This doesnt prove that RIM shouldnt have gone with Android at all. It has ZERO to do with RIM. It proves that HTC is doing very very poorly, that is all. If you take the above as true, then you must also say that Samsung's success means that RIM was wrong for not going with Android. That is complete nonsense.

There are PLENTY of reasons RIM should not go with Android, HTC has zero to do with any of them.

[Masahiro]

This is not so much proof that RIM was right not to go with Android, but rather that Android is not a panacea that leads to easy riches for an oem.

[Skeevecr]

This doesnt prove that RIM shouldnt have gone with Android at all. It has ZERO to do with RIM. It proves that HTC is doing very very poorly, that is all. If you take the above as true, then you must also say that Samsung's success means that RIM was wrong for not going with Android. That is complete nonsense.

There are PLENTY of reasons RIM should not go with Android, HTC has zero to do with any of them.

HTC are a good example of why those crying out for Rim to have gone Android was wrong, other examples would be every other handset maker who is not called Samsung, the simple fact of the matter is that only people making money from Android are Google, Samsung and MS.

Samsung is not a counter-example to HTC because they are the exception to all the other handset makers who are learning that only competing on specs or price are not a good way to be profitable.

[OMGitworks]

(Reuters) - Samsung Electronics, the world leader in mobiles and memory chips, said it likely earned a quarterly profit of $8.3 billion, as it sold close to 500 handsets a minute and as demand picked up for the flat screens it makes for mobile devices, including those for rival Apple Inc products.

Record profit for companies doing it the right way, failure for those who try to push crap.

[Rickroller]

(Reuters) - Samsung Electronics, the world leader in mobiles and memory chips, said it likely earned a quarterly profit of $8.3 billion, as it sold close to 500 handsets a minute and as demand picked up for the flat screens it makes for mobile devices, including those for rival Apple Inc products.

Record profit for companies doing it the right way, failure for those who try to push crap.

Proof that size does indeed matter

[kevinnugent]

And every handset HTC makes looks similar to the last one. I think they need to change their basic image.

[Tre Lawrence]

HTC are a good example of why those crying out for Rim to have gone Android was wrong, other examples would be every other handset maker who is not called Samsung, the simple fact of the matter is that only people making money from Android are Google, Samsung and MS.

Samsung is not a counter-example to HTC because they are the exception to all the other handset makers who are learning that only competing on specs or price are not a good way to be profitable.

But are the counter argument could be made that HTC, even in its current Android doldrums, is better off than RIM is (BB10 excluded from discussion), couldn't it? Just playing devil's advocate here.

[greatwiseone]

I have a HTC Amaze as my primary personal phone, and I really like it. Great camera, great build quality, expandable memory, and battery...

Biggest problem on HTC Android phones is Sense. The Sense UI was cool a couple of years ago, but now Sense is just a drag on resources (and it's not even that good anymore). There are also quite a few bugs and upgrade schedules to the newest Android OS are non-existent.

In any event, the reason why I think the RIM/Apple/Google + Moto approach works better is the proper integration of software onto the hardware. That's the heart of Android's problem. Samsung's able to get out of it because (a) Samsung makes a lot of the hardware and (b) it uses volume and different price points to beat the competitor.

[12Danny123]

Not every handset. the WP 8X and 8S are completely new. it's doesn't look like their past phones at all.