HTC Hopes $150-300 Smartphones Will Improve Company Fortunes in 2014 Michael Kwan February 10, 2014 It’s pretty clear that Samsung is the biggest name in the world of Android these days and this has created quite the challenge for all the other companies to stay profitable. Sony has had to restructure its business and Motorola’s been sold off to Lenovo, but what about Taiwan’s HTC? Even though the HTC One has been regarded as being one of, if not the best Android phone of 2013, the company has struggled. Moving forward with 2014, HTC plans on shifting its focus a little away from the higher end and more toward the mid-rage with more phones in the $150 to $300 price range. This will be true both for existing markets, as well as for developming markets. Clearly, something had to be done after HTC saw its stock price drop 80 percent and its profits drop 83 percent in Q2 2013 compared to the same time in 2012. With that, HTC say its market share fall to a mere two percent worldwide. The problem, according to HTC co-founder Cher Wang, was that they concentrated too much on the flagship and neglected the rest of the range. You’ll notice that there is far more attention in that range now with devices under the $500 price range like the Moto G and Nexus 5. And let’s not forget just how many models Samsung has approaching just about every price range and screen size imaginable. The plan now is to pay more attention to emerging markets and to midrange phones, but they still don’t plan on hitting the lowest of the low-end to compete with Xiaomi and Huawei. Will HTC have an HTC One “lite” to coincide with the HTC One+ later this year? Time will tell. Via The Verge Share This With The World!