14 DAY TRIAL // HTC One M8, the latest flagship smartphone from Taiwanese mobile phone maker HTC Corporation, is reportedly seeing fading sales, despite the fact that it has been available for purchase for only several months.
Apparently, the smartphone is seeing high competition from devices coming from other mobile phone makers out there, and is experiencing increasingly slow sales, a report coming from financial firm Canaccord Genuity claims.
Moreover, said report, cited by Cnet, claims that things will be even worse for the smartphone towards the end of this year, as new phone models will arrive on shelves.
HTC is trying hard to regain its foothold after a series of disastrous quarters, and HTC One M8 appeared to be the device to help it achieve this goal.
However, the company’s efforts are said to have been overshadowed by the advertising initiatives of vendors such as Apple and Samsung.
According to Michael Walkley, analyst with Canaccord Genuity, the HTC One M8 is not selling as well as one might have expected in the United States, mainly due to the increased competition it sees from other high-end Android devices out there.
Moreover, he claims that sales will be further hurt by the release of new devices from Samsung, as well as by smartphones coming from Chinese mobile phone makers and Apple.
Unlike other mobile phone makers out there, HTC cannot sustain financial intensive marketing campaigns, it seems.
Thus, the company has taken a customer-friendly approach for these campaigns, promising the release of new updates faster, and providing users with free replacements if the screen of their phones is shattered within the first year of use.
The HTC One M8 was made official in March this year, and landed on shelves on launch day with a 5-inch full HD touchscreen display and an aluminum body, retailing the overall outer design of its predecessor, the HTC One (M7).
The smartphone is powered by a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor, paired with 2GB of RAM and 16GB/32GB of internal memory. A microSD memory card slot with support for up to 128GB of external storage was also included.
On the back, the handset sports a dual 4MP UltraPixel camera setup, with dual-LED flash, auto-focus and full HD video recording capabilities. Moreover, it features a 5-megapixel front camera for making video calls while on the go and for snapping selfies.
HTC One M8 also features 4G LTE connectivity, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, and an infrared port, along with a built-in GPS receiver. It runs under the Android 4.4.2 KitKat operating system (Android 4.4.4 KitKat is already rolling out to it).