Phone maker HTC has just published its revenue numbers for October of 2012, and the news isn't good: the company pulled in $17.2 billion New Taiwan Dollars, which is just about 61 percent lower than the $44.1 billion it reported in October of 2011. The year-to-date numbers aren't any better: at this point in 2011, HTC had made about $408.5 billion, but the total for 2012 is a much-lower $246.2 billion.
The company has suffered a number of setbacks recently, most significantly its complete exclusion from the tablet market. Sales of HTC's Flyer and Jetstream tablets apparently "met expectations," HTC global online communications manager Jeff Gordon told Fierce Wireless, but at $299 and $700 respectively were not equipped to compete in a post-Kindle Fire, post-Nexus 7 market.
Things in October 2011 were considerably rosier: the company's $44.1 billion in revenue was 36 percent higher than the $32.4 billion the company made in October of 2010. This reversal of fortunes is reflected in the wording of HTC's press releases: the October 2011 release talks about year-over-year growth and includes a table demonstrating just how far up revenues had gone; the terse October 2012 release is less than three-dozen words long and includes no such contextual information (both releases are available from HTC's investor page).
HTC is looking to turn things around, though—its recent Android-based One X+ and Windows Phone 8-based 8X handsets have both received mostly positive reviews—but the competition is stiff. Samsung has snapped up a great deal of the Android phone market, and competitors like LG are stepping up their games with phones like the Optimus G and the Nexus 4. HTC also sent a message to journalists today about an upcoming event with Verizon on November 13th—Ars will be on the scene, and if there's anything there that might help HTC in the coming year, we'll be reporting on it.
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