HTC aims to be more vocally brilliant - Financial Times (blog)

HTC’s new Windows 8 phones may look pretty cool, but company executives appear to be feeling the heat. At Wednesday’s launch they addressed head-on recent criticism of their strategy, pledging to work with Microsoft to bulk up marketing and promotion efforts, areas HTC is often seen as doing badly.

The new phones aren’t yet for sale so it’s too early to say if they’ll win over consumers. Based on Thursday’s share price, however, its seems investors are shrugging.

HTC has suffered as Apple and Samsung’s new phones have outsold it, but investors have become a bit more optimistic recently. Its shares are still down 21.6 per cent over the past 3 months. But in the past month, they’ve risen 28 per cent from the lows.

So far investors seem underwhelmed by the new phones and took some profit from the shares. The Taipei-listed company was down 1.3 per cent in mid-day trading, against a fall of 0.9 per cent of the TAIEX index.

The two new phones themselves were launched just over 12 hours earlier in New York City at an event featuring HTC’s chief executive, president, and Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer. The launch was like most others â€" the executives extolled the virtues of the hardware, featured a video from HTC’s design team talking about the creative process, and said it would eventually launch on 150 carriers globally.

The executives did take a few jabs at another Asian competitor with comments like HTC CEO Peter Chou’s remark that the phones “look and feel like nothing else on the market”.

What stood out even more, however, was how HTC and Microsoft pledged to put a lot of resources into branding the phones and making sure they get sold to consumers.

Analysts and investors have been criticising HTC recently for its relatively slim marketing budget and its inability to get carriers behind promoting its devices directly to would-be buyers. Apple and Samsung have, therefore, lapped it in the smartphone race. With the resources of Microsoft behind it, HTC could once again become a contender.

“We need to bring these devices to market in the right way, in a big way,” said HTC’s Jason Mackenzie, president of global sales and marketing.

Ballmer described the phone as a “Windows phone hero product” and said Microsoft would be working closely with HTC on getting the devices out.

With Windows 8 still untested and Windows 7 phones not the hit that Android and iOS have been, HTC’s commitment to the operating system is still a gamble. But it’s clear that the company has heard the criticisms of its strategy and is trying to address them.

Related reading:
HTC: not so smart now, beyondbrics
HTC suffers as it loses the Android lead, FT
HTC looks to China to drive growth, FT