TAIPEI, Taiwan — HTC unveiled a cheaper version of its One M9 Plus flagship smartphone in Taiwan on August 18 in an attempt to regain momentum in its home market following the disappointing run of its three-month-old M9 Plus handset. The company has been struggling for years, and now the smartphone maker is restructuring in a bid to lower its operating expenses.
The Taiwanese manufacturer announced its plans to cut 15 percent of its staff worldwide earlier this month as it continues to battle against poor sales of its smartphones. HTC employed 15,685 people as of March 31, so the reductions will affect more than 2,000 employees. HTC’s job cuts are designed to position the company to “diversify beyond smartphones,” said HTC CEO Cher Wang. “We need a flexible and dynamic organization to ensure we can take advantage of all of the exciting opportunities in the connected lifestyle space.”
The One ME dual-SIM card smartphone is at a starting price of NT$14,900, 38 percent cheaper than the M9 Plus when it was launched in mid-May at NT$23,900.
Moreover, the new handset, like the M9 Plus, is equipped with a 5.2-inch display with a resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels, a MediaTek Helio X10 octa-core 2.2 gigahertz mobile processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a fingerprint scanner built into the home button on the front, a 20-megapixel rear camera and support for up to 2TB of storage through a micro-SD slot.
In addition, HTC outshined Apple Inc. to regain the title of Taiwan’s largest smartphone vendor by sales volume in June with a 19.3 percent share, ahead of South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. with 18.6 percent and Taiwan-based Asustek Computer Inc. with 17.9 percent, according to industry statistics.
However, the company used to control 10 percent of the smartphone market worldwide.
