HTC profits soar on Google’s wings

HTC is seeing its strategic alliance with Google pay off, quite literally, with the firm reporting an incredible second quarter in which its revenue jumped up 58% and profits soared 33% year on year.
The Taiwanese phone maker, which has reinvented itself to become a popular brand in its own right, didn’t specify how many devices it had sold in the quarter, but it was obviously enough to draw in some $1.9 billion in revenue and $268 million in pure unaudited net profit. Some believe the number of HTC phones sold this spring could even be as high as 4.5 million.

“HTC’s second-quarter earnings result is better than its original second-quarter guidance, [as] both June and second-quarter revenues continuously hit record highs,” said a company press release.
Google is being credited with much of HTC’s current success, with many believing that the firm’s fortunes only really began to take off when it made the strategic decision to almost exclusively produce Android phones, despite a formerly strong partnership with Microsoft.
It’s not that HTC won’t make any more Microsoft-based handsets, but the company seems to have made significant efforts to scale back on its Windows Mobile offerings, limiting them to the HD2 and HD mini, with a firm commitment to only one Windows Phone 7 device so far, and no apparent intention to pursue too many more after that.
In the past couple of quarters HTC has also gained itself something of a reputation for making “halo” devices, phones with so much popular appeal that they draw punters to the various carriers carrying them, like Sprint’s Evo 4G or Verizon’s Droid Incredible for instance.
Other popular devices which have helped HTC gain a much needed foothold in Europe include the Desire, Legend and Wildfire phones.
This doesn’t mean HTC can lie back on its laurels, however, with powerful competitors like Motorola snapping at its heels. Indeed, Motorola’s Droid X and Droid 2 devices are already being touted as handsets which could knock HTC from its top spot at Verizon, not to mention what would happen to HTC’s place if the carrier were to start selling the iPhone.
Still, for now HTC is enjoying its Google Android harvest with many analysts predicting the firm’s handset shipments to reach a whopping 20 million units by the end of 2010, up significantly from what now seems like a paltry 12 million in 2009.