HTC’s in a tough spot, struggling to turn a profit on sales of its smartphones. For the past few quarters we’ve been taking a close look at financial reports, waiting to see if the company may be able to turn around this downward slump that’s been affecting its sales. Right now we’re waiting to see what impact the One M8 can have on things, but as we stand by and look forward to the next fiscal report, a new rumor tries to identify one way HTC may be looking to reduce costs, outsourcing the production of its smartphones.
While HTC’s taken it upon itself to manufacture its own hardware in the past, sources now claim that the company has begun turning to outside partners to build at least three of its Desire models. For the moment, it sounds like the flagship One devices are still being manufactured internally (in case you had any worries about quality control taking a dip), but even outsourcing some second-tier models is still a big step for a company that had previously taken such a hands-on approach to its hardware.
The idea of smartphone OEM that does everything itself is an appealing concept, sure, but we can appreciate how this move makes a lot of sense for HTC: with the position it’s in, the company needs to focus both on increasing revenue and decreasing expenses, and if outsourcing the manufacture of some of its hardware lets it achieve the latter (without making too many sacrifices in the process), so be it.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
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