DailyTech - HTC Closes South Korean Office After Getting Obliterated in Local Sales

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Gadgets HTC Closes South Korean Office After Getting Obliterated in Local Sales
Jason Mick (Blog) - July 30, 2012 1:30 PM

20 comment(s) - last by bigboxes.. on Jul 31 at 9:07 AM

Office is third to be closed in last two months

Taiwan's HTC Corp. (TPE:2498) is one of the largest Android phonemakers in the world, but the company has fallen out of contention for the lead as the smartphone market has evolved into a "two-horse" race between South Korea's Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (KSC:005930) and American device-maker Apple, Inc. (AAPL).

Amid falling profits HTC has been forced to make cuts. Today it announced one of those cuts -- the closure of its South Korean office.

HTC remains a player in the U.S. in terms of market share, but in South Korea it owns only a tiny 1 percent sliver of the market. That number is actually down from the 2 percent it held in the country last year.

Samsung obviously tops South Korean sales charts, but LG Electronics Inc. (KSC:066570) also has been doing well. And Pantech Comp., Ltd. has also proven an emerging threat on the market. Together LG, Samsung, and Pantech own 90 percent of South Korea's sales, with foreign handset makers like Apple eating up the remainder.

_{HTC has closed several offices as part of a downsizing plan. [Image Source: Reuters]}

HTC in June shuttered its Brazil office, another weak sales region. Like in South Korea, in Brazil HTC only held 1 percent of the market. HTC has encouraged employees from both offices to apply for a transfer to other regions.

Also in June HTC closed the doors of a research office in Durham, North Carolina, releasing approximately 50 employees.

The company has faced extra pressure in recent months from a weak Euro and from strong sales of Samsung's best-selling Galaxy S III smartphone, which launched in late June to international acclaim.

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I love my EVOLTE

By bigboxes on 7/30/2012 2:51:29 PM , Rating: 3

Find it hard to understand why they'd only have a 1 percent market share in any market. The phone itself is awesome. Great build and specs are about as good as the SGIII. There must be something else there. Maybe they don't know how to run a business.

RE: I love my EVOLTE

By bigboxes on 7/30/2012 2:53:47 PM , Rating: 2

I forgot to add that it's Sprint's network that I loathe. If they just invested in their network over the years they wouldn't have their customers leaving in droves. They have the best rates of any of the major carriers, just not the network that you are paying for. They lie about rolling out LTE when they are still in the testing phase.

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RE: I love my EVOLTE

By zephyrprime on 7/30/2012 3:19:13 PM , Rating: 4

You realize that the reason they have the best rates is because they didn't spend money investing on their network?

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RE: I love my EVOLTE

By anactoraaron on 7/30/2012 9:27:25 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
They have the best rates of any of the major carriers

Incorrect. That would be good ole Magenta.

quote:
There must be something else there.

There is... it's their crappy network. They have that distinction in the minds of the people who are looking for service and rightly so. Not just the speeds, the coverage is also poor.

http://www.dailytech.com/Sprint+is+Biggest+Loser+i...

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RE: I love my EVOLTE

By bigboxes on 7/31/2012 1:38:36 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
quote: There must be something else there.

How you managed to take something I said about HTC and apply it to Sprint is ingenious. Actually, I'm fairly happy with Sprint. I can make calls almost anywhere and I sound crystal clear. AT&T on the other hand sounds like crap. That and they are always dropping calls. And Verizon? How much do you really want to pay for service? As far as their network goes I just want to have decent throughput so it's not like I'm on dial-up. Can you hear me now?

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RE: I love my EVOLTE

By anactoraaron on 7/31/2012 2:15:44 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
How you managed to take something I said about HTC and apply it to Sprint is ingenious

Uh yeah, it must have been the thread titled "I love my EVO LTE" which is only on Sprint. It was indeed ingenious.

I agree with you on Verizon. Way too expensive. Also Verizon's 3G service is terrible so if you aren't in a 4G area you will be grinding your teeth doing anything on it with your phone. As far as sprint's coverage it really is dependent on where you live (applies to T-Mo too).

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RE: I love my EVOLTE

By bigboxes on 7/31/2012 9:07:03 AM , Rating: 2

I can still love my hardware and complain about the network. This has nothing to do with HTC. I was just wondering how HTC could have such poor market share with such wonderful hardware. I think the consensus is marketing. Of course, Samsung has a lot more $$ for litigation and resources to ride out any challenge from Apple.

I do, however, live in the DFW metroplex. Sprint is indeed strong here, but I had great coverage even when I was in Aspen. On the flip side, my friends on AT&T have great data. Their LTE speeds have been in the 30M+ range. I am jealous. My phone doesn't have WiMax so I am waiting on Sprint to rollout their LTE deployment, which has supposedly already been done. Yeah... I don't think so.

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RE: I love my EVOLTE

By StevoLincolnite on 7/30/2012 3:00:06 PM , Rating: 2

HTC can gain allot of marketshare in South Korea almost overnight.

.....Just port StarCraft to their phones.

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RE: I love my EVOLTE

By ritualm on 7/30/2012 10:00:15 PM , Rating: 1

Here's a secret about South Korea. Want to make money really fast? Fill it with pro-SK, anti-Japan propaganda.

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RE: I love my EVOLTE

By dgingerich on 7/30/2012 3:57:13 PM , Rating: 3

I know, I love my One S. It's a great phone. They just have a disadvantage in Samsung's home market, and their marketing is a bit lacking.

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RE: I love my EVOLTE

By michael2k on 7/30/2012 6:09:28 PM , Rating: 2

Given how poorly they have performed worldwide, it might be accurate to say that HTC doesn't know how to run a business. On top of that, HTC has always had less than 3% market share in Korea, no matter how awesome their phones may have been.

Even Apple has only managed to grab 9% of the market.

Stupid spam filter won't let me post links!

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RE: I love my EVOLTE

By seamonkey79 on 7/30/2012 7:38:15 PM , Rating: 2

They don't know how to advertise, and Samsung does. HTC went from being an OEM for the phone companies to marketing their own phones, but doesn't have the experience of actually marketing to the end user that Samsung has had practice with for... ever. Even LG has far more experience gearing stuff towards the end user, plus a name that's rather known to go with it. Samsung makes good hardware, has a name to go with it, and still hasn't had the 'bad-name' of lack of support catch up to it in the phone world like has started happening in the TV and other consumer electronics world. That alone makes them far better at the phone game than HTC... although I'll keep buying my HTCs until they simply make an utter piece of trash.

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RE: I love my EVOLTE

By sprockkets on 7/30/2012 7:39:45 PM , Rating: 2

Marketing. Look at what Samsung is doing now with their marketing. HTC doesn't come close.

Don't forget either how far samsung came. One of their early android phones was promised elcair or something, then never got it. They still are behind HTC in updates. Then the Galaxy S had GPS issues.

But, they are pretty much the one to beat today!

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LG?

By zephyrprime on 7/30/2012 3:19:52 PM , Rating: 2

I'm surprised that LG is the number two phone maker over there since their phones are so lackluster.

RE: LG?

By Yongsta on 7/30/2012 4:02:01 PM , Rating: 2

LG has some pretty awesome phones in Korea that we don't have (LG Optimus 4x) also some phones where you can watch HDTV OTA, that technology isn't over here yet neither.

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RE: LG?

By wordsworm on 7/30/2012 7:27:53 PM , Rating: 2

Maybe 3-4 years ago, I remember getting the cheapest phone I could buy. You could watch TV on it without paying any fees. Meanwhile, here in O'Canaduh, they're only just now starting to put TV on smart phones at a steep price.

Anyways, I don't think it should be so surprising that HTC is failing in Korea. Koreans are very loyal to their own companies. They also seem to think highly of products made in the US. They openly hate everything Japanese (including people), so there's almost no competition from Japan on any front.

Having come back to Canaduh, I sometimes feel like a Jetson having gone to the world of the Flinstones. In so many ways Canaduh is so primitive.

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