No end in sight for HTC’s downward spiral

2012 was a bad year for HTC, 2013 has been even worse and 2014 may be the worst yet. Focus Taiwan points us to a recent research note from Morgan Stanley that projects HTC’s smartphone shipments will fall by an additional 33% year-over-year in 2014 largely because the company can’t keep up with Apple and Samsung in the over-saturated high-end market and because it doesn’t have a strong strategy for selling devices in the low-end market. This comes as particularly unwelcome news for HTC, which reported a quarterly loss of $100 million in Q3 2013 and has been seeing its employees jump ship by allegedly stealing its trade secrets and selling them to a municipal government in China. If things get much worse, then not even Robert Downey Jr.’s star power will be able to save the hapless Taiwanese company.