HTC One A9 Boosts Company's Revenue To 6-Month High

By Jackie Villegas, Christian Post Contributor Thursday, December 10, 2015

2015 has been a particularly rough fiscal year for Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC, but the company has shown improved revenues beginning November.

On the heels of its One A9 smartphone's release in late October, the smartphone giant reported improved revenues, earning $314 million in November - a 6-month revenue peak and a 15 percent month-on-month increase from October.

15 percent may seem like a small thing, but it's growth that HTC badly needs. The Taiwanese company has seen its market share fall from 11 percent in 2011 to just 2 percent in 2015, according to a CNET report. In September, HTC's precarious financial position was made public when the company was removed from the FTSE TWSE Taiwan 50 Index of the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The Index lists the 50 most valuable blue chip stocks in Taiwan. This public defeat was preceded by the company's August announcement that it was about to decrease its workforce by 15 percent in a cost-cutting manuever.

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The root of HTC's problem is a two-headed one: on one side, stiff competition from Apple and Samsung in the premium smartphone market; on the other, competition from low-priced smartphones from Chinese companies Huawei and Xiaomi in the midrange and budget smartphone markets.

But though the ailing company experienced a 6-month revenue peak, HTC isn't out of the red just yet. The company's November 2015 revenue is still lower compared to its revenue last year in the same month by 40 percent.

The HTC One A9 was one of the first Android smartphones to launch with Android Marshmallow onboard. It features a full-HD 5-inch display, an octa-core processor, a 13-megapixel main rear camera with HDR mode and raw shooting, a 4-Ultrapixel front-shooter, and a physical home button doubling as a fingerprint scanner. Critics pointed out its similarity with the iPhone 6, with its all-metal design, curved glass edges, and speaker holes on the bottom edge of the device. The HTC One A9 is priced at $499.