Huawei President Ren Zhengfei once said that his biggest regret is to enter the communications industry, because the industry is too competitive, the update iteration speed is too fast, and life and death may be in an instant. In 2020, Huawei's mobile phones surpassed Samsung and Apple to the top of global shipments, but now they have fallen out of the top 5.
10 years ago, there was also a mobile phone brand, not only released the world's first Android mobile phone, at its peak, even beat Apple, with a market share of 24% to become the us market mobile phone sales champion. That company is HTC.
So why is it so hard to see HTC phones anymore, and is HTC still alive?
First, HTC's peak road
Looking back at HTC's history, it is not an exaggeration to say that it was born with a golden key.
In 1997, Wang Xuehong, the daughter of Taiwan's "god of management" and "King of Formosa Plastics" Wang Yongqing, founded HTC. Similar to Foxconn, HTC's initial business was to provide OEM services for technology companies such as HP and Dell. After several years of work, HTC also has its own technical research and development strength.
In 2002, Wang Xuehong began to try to make her own brand and launched her first smartphone. However, because there is not much innovation and differentiation, Wang Xuehong's first mobile phone has a mediocre response. Until 2007, wang Xuehong saw the first generation of iPhones released by Apple, which opened the door to the HTC smartphone era.
In 2008, HTC bet on Apple rival Google's Android system and released the G1, the first smartphone equipped with Android, becoming Google's first ally. Looking back at today's global mobile phone market, 90% of the models are equipped with the Android system or its derivatives, which shows that Wang Xuehong's vision was poisonous at that time.
HTC's G1 became a hit with its hardware, stunning exterior design, and new and smooth system. It sold 1.5 million units during the pre-sale period, becoming the only mobile phone brand that could compete with Apple at that time. In 2011, HTC sales reached its peak, with annual shipments of 43 million units ranking second among global mobile phone manufacturers, second only to Apple, and overpowering Nokia, BlackBerry and other mobile phone manufacturers, with a market value of 33.8 billion yuan. As the founder, Wang Xuehong also won the throne of "Taiwan's richest man" from Gou.
But it was also this year that HTC began to go downhill.
Second, HTC from prosperity to decline
In 2011, Apple raised the patent stick and launched a lawsuit against HTC. At the end of that year, the U.S. International Trade Commission found HTC patent infringement, and from April 2012, imposed an import ban on 29 HTC mobile phones involved in infringement, and before the HTC mobile phone was the sales champion in the US market, just like Huawei in recent years, HTC's share quickly plummeted from 24% to 6.2% after being banned, and the lost share was cannibalized by Apple.
The leak occurred overnight, and Nokia also launched a lawsuit against HTC in the second year, and banned sales in European countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom. Although HTC finally reached a private settlement with Apple and Nokia at a high price, the negative impact of the ban on sales cannot be eliminated in overseas markets that attach great importance to patents. Coupled with the large amount of litigation fees that have been paid, and the missed development opportunities, HTC's decline has become irreparable.
At the same time, in the mainland market, HTC's approach makes people feel that HTC is entertaining consumers.
When the iPhone uses a series of models a year to cultivate consumers rather than indiscriminately, HTC has opened the machine sea tactics, released about 50 mobile phones in 4 years, the model is not too differentiated, and even HTC's own sales staff can not figure out the difference between their own mobile phone models, and the price is almost the same as the iPhone, which eventually led to consumers abandoning HTC.
Just when HTC was treating consumers negatively, mainland mobile phone brands began to rise.
Third, the rise of "Hua, Rice, O, V"
In 2011, Yu Chengdong, the "first fierce general" of Huawei's mobile phone, officially took over the Huawei terminal business division, and gradually got rid of the label of the OEM machine and began to enter the high-end market. In the same period, Xiaomi has won the love of many mobile phone enthusiasts with the ultimate cost performance; OPPO and VIVO have invited celebrity advertisements, sponsored variety shows, and played the fan economy card through marketing means.
Domestic mobile phone manufacturers punched in a chaotic fist, killing the "teacher" HTC can not find the north. In September 2017, HTC sold its mobile phone division and a team of nearly 2,000 people to Google for $1.1 billion. In 2020, HTC closed all of its downline stores, losing as much as 1.38 billion yuan in the same year.
When everyone thought that this former mobile phone overlord would become the "tears of the times", it quietly became the world's first in another field.
Fourth, the king of VR - HTC
As early as the lack of growth in the mobile phone business, HTC began to diversify, of which the VR field is the top priority.
In 2015, at the Global Mobile Communication Conference in Barcelona, HTC and game company Valve jointly launched the Vive, a vr-mounted VR device, officially entering the VR field. In 2017, HTC invested $1.1 billion from the sale of its mobile phone business and $630 million from the sale of its Shanghai factory into vr.
The failure in the mobile phone business made Wang Xuehong realize that the future of hardware assembly is very narrow. As a result, after the transformation of VR, HTC began to increase investment in areas such as content, software and 5G communications. In 2016, in order to attract VR developers, HTC established a unified VR ecosystem from hardware to software. At present, among the global VR equipment manufacturers such as Philips and Microsoft, HTC is the only company that can come up with a complete VR solution.
As of the end of 2020, in the VR field, HTC has more than 680 patent applications in the VR field, almost all of which are invention patents, and has become the world's first with a market share of 35.7%. What's even more amazing is that the VR painting tool developed by Google - Tilt Brush, HTC's Vive is the best adaptation tool, allowing painters to enjoy 3D painting.
5. Conclusion
Although the current price of VR equipment is expensive and users are more professional, with the popularity of 5G networks and the arrival of meta-universes, HTC may re-divert the trend of technology with its first-mover advantage.
God closed the door to HTC's mobile phone business, but also opened a window into the VR space for it.