HTC Forecasts Sales Revenue to Peak in Q3

Taipei, Aug. 2, 2011 (CENS)--With new models of smartphones to be launched and seasonal booms hitting the industry, the Taiwan-based HTC Corp., a globally leading supplier of smartphones, is likely to see its sales revenue sharply surge to hit a record high in the third quarter of this year, according to the firm's CEO Peter Chou.

Chou indicated that his firm is scheduled to launch 6 to 8 new models in the third quarter, in a bid to push up its smartphone sales to 13.5 million units.

Despite mounting market uncertainty in the second half of this year, institutional investors widely believe that HTC will attain the estimated sales number in the third quarter, with EPS (earnings per share) to reach the level of NT$22. Hopefully, the firm's full-year EPS will amount to between NT$82 and NT$85 this year.

The firm just reported its smartphone sales of 12.11 million units for the second quarter of this year, up 25% from a quarter earlier and exceeding its original projection of between 11 million and 11.5 million units to hit a new high. In addition, the firm's combined revenue of NT$124.4 billion and net profits of NT$17.52 billion for the quarter also hit all-time highs, reflecting the firm's increasingly huge growth potential.

Noteworthy is that the launch of entry-level smartphone models, including Wildfire S and Chacha, caused the ASP (average selling price) of the firm's products sold in the second quarter to slide to US$349, 2.8% less than a quarter earlier, with second-quarter gross profit rate and operating income margin also dropping to 28.8% and 15.5%, respectively. However, this didn't disappoint Chou, who said that this year is still lucrative for his firm, especially when its smartphone sales in Asia and China have explosively soared 200% and 400%, respectively, so far this year.

In the face of market worry about HTC's declined gross profits following its foray into China, Chou claimed that his firm is positioned at the segment for middle-to-high-end smartphones, and therefore has no plans to launch low-priced models in the market, uncompromised to price competition.