HTC mobile phone goodbye to the Chinese mainland market

"In humility comes excellence." Do you remember this advertising slogan? It comes from Taiwanese mobile phone manufacturer HTC, a former pioneer of smartphones. On December 13, it was reported that HTC Chinese mainland official website has no mobile phones for sale. After landing on the official website on the 14th, the Beijing Daily client reporter confirmed that its blockchain smartphones are not sold in Chinese mainland, and the former mobile phone giants have completely bid farewell.

On HTC China's official website, its product column shows the blockchain smartphone EXODUS and vr headset product VIVE. When the reporter clicks on VIVE, the page will automatically jump to the HTC Vive official flagship store on Tmall, but after clicking EXODUS, the page will jump to the HTC US official website.

In 2019, HTC officially closed its mobile phone flagship stores in JD.com and Tmall. This also means that HTC's mobile phone business has completely withdrawn from the mainland market.

Speaking of HTC, mobile phone users after 70 and 80 will certainly not be strangers. HTC, which started as an OEM, was founded in 1997 by Wang Xuehong, daughter of Wang Yongqing, the "god of management" in Taiwan, together with Zhuo Huotu and Zhou Yongming, and the full name is Hongda International Electronics Co., Ltd. In the industry, its company is abbreviated as HTC.

The early HTC mainly oem electronic products for BRANDS such as HP, Compaq, and Dell, including mobile phones. With the rise of the smartphone wave, in 2006, the HTC brand began to become independent, and in 2008, together with the US carrier T-Mobile, launched the world's first Android phone HTC G1, which is the ancestor of HTC's famous G series. According to media reports, with excellent hardware, stunning appearance and humanized operating system, HTCG1 sold 1.5 million units in the pre-sale period, which became a hit and opened the way to take off.

In 2011, HTC had become the second-largest smartphone in sales after Apple, with a market capitalization of more than $33 billion at one point. There is a saying that every 0.8 seconds in the world at that time, someone would buy HTC's mobile phone, which also made founder Wang Xuehong the richest man in Taiwan.

However, the rapidly changing market, if it does not advance, it will retreat. Since 2012, HTC has been going downhill. One of the hallmark events was the high-hope HTC One X encountering sales "Waterloo".

In retrospect, the reasons that led to the decline of the former "giants" were both inside and outside. External causes are a series of patent disputes, first Apple sued HTC in the name of patent infringement, demanding that the sale of all HTC mobile phones be banned in the United States, and then Microsoft, Samsung, Nokia, etc. have sued HTC for patent infringement, dragging down its global development pace.

The internal factors are HTC's own lack of product innovation, as well as poor marketing and promotion. With the rapid rise of domestic mobile phone brands, HTC's market share in Chinese mainland is losing more and more. Many years ago, Wang Xuehong herself admitted in a media interview that there is a problem in HTC's communication with consumers, "We must clearly tell consumers about good things, and the things you get are very good and fashionable, and we have to tell them." We have problems with that now."

In 2020, the 62-year-old Wang Xuehong returned to the CEO position. With the advent of the 5G era, HTC has also turned its attention to the VR industry, saying that it will accelerate the integration of AR, VR, AI and blockchain technology in tandem, and its VR glasses product, VIVE Flow, is priced at 3888 yuan on the official website.

Undoubtedly, the VR industry is one of the hottest markets at present, and China has become one of the regions with the most active innovation, the highest market acceptance and the greatest development potential in the global virtual reality industry. The "White Paper on the Development of the Virtual Reality Industry (2019)" predicts that by 2023, the shipment volume of VR headset equipment in China will exceed 10 million units, and the domestic virtual reality market will reach 430 billion yuan.

I wonder if this time, HTC can laugh to the end?

Image source: Screenshot of the official website