HTC to quit low-end smartphone market

HTC is to exit the low-end smartphone market in 2017, as revealed in a report from Digital Trends on HTC’s fourth-quarter earnings call.

Describing the low-end smartphone market as ‘ultra-competitive’, HTC CFO Chia-Lin Chang stated that HTC will drop low-cost devices from the company’s 2017 lineup and will replace the devices with six to seven high-end models.

HTC recorded an operating loss of $177 million during the final quarter of 2017, which is a slight improvement on the company’s $133 million loss for the third-quarter of 2016.