Taiwanese electronics company HTC plans to cut roughly a quarter of its global workforce.
The Android smartphone maker, which once sold one in ten smartphones globally, has seen it’s market share decline steadily over the last few years. These cuts indicate more trouble for HTC.
The company said it would cut 1,500 jobs in its manufacturing unit in Taiwan. According to data from the company, this number amounts to about a quarter of the 6,450 employees employed globally as of June. The layoffs will be completed by the end of September.
The job cuts are a bid for HTC to better manage resources as smartphone sales continue to fall. Furthermore, the move comes as part of the company’s plan to consolidate its smartphone and virtual reality businesses under common leadership in each region.
The layoffs are likely due to significant plunges in revenue. The company reported a 55.5 percent plunge in year-over-year revenue in April 2018. Additionally, HTC reported over 46 percent declines in year-over-year revenue in May and March.
Earlier this year, Google completed an $1.1 billion USD acquisition of roughly 2,000 HTC employees. Those employees bolstered the search giant’s hardware division. Additionally, many of them worked on the Pixel and Pixel 2.
Unfortunately, the future doesn’t look bright for HTC, which is sad to see as the company was once legendary among Android phones. HTC was behind the first Android smartphone — the HTC Dream.
It was also HTC, in partnership with Rogers, that first brought Android to Canada with two devices. Alongside the Dream, HTC released the Magic in Canada with Rogers, before launching the device south of the border.
Last month HTC launched its new U12+ smartphone. As always the Taiwanese company released a superb piece of hardware. However, it doesn’t stack up to the competition. Furthermore, the U12+ is difficult to get for Canadians — a far cry from the HTC of old.
As MobileSyrup’s Dean Daley outlined in his review of the smartphone, the U12+ is a good smartphone, but in such a hyper-competitive market, it’s difficult for the device to stand out from the crowd.
Source: Business Insider
