CHIP CHANGE:Asustek this year switched most of its smartphone internal hardware to Qualcomm chips, which has seen demand for the company’s handsets increase

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 04, 2016
By: Lauly Li / Staff reporter

HTC Corp’s (宏達電) smartphone shipments are this year expected to underperform Asustek Computer Inc’s (華碩) for the second consecutive year, which hardly makes HTC a major smartphone brand in the global market, analysts said.

Market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) last week forecast that Asustek’s smartphone shipments would grow 34 percent annually to 21.5 million this year, while HTC’s shipments could drop 27 percent year-on-year to 13 million units.

“We project shipments of HTC’s flagship model M10 will only be about 1 million this year… It is highly unlikely that HTC will be able to regain its past glory as a major brand in the market,” TrendForce analyst Avril Wu (吳雅婷) said in a report released on Thursday.

Asustek has become the leading Taiwanese smartphone brand, mainly because of its low-priced, high-performance handsets, Wu said.    [FULL  STORY]