HTC announced uninspiring sales numbers for November 2013, as it continues to struggle to reassert itself in the fiercely competitive smartphone market.

The company’s November revenue was TWD15.47 billion ($523 million), down 27.1 per cent year on year. If there is a positive, it is a 3.2 per cent month-on-month increase, although the company saw a bigger October to November recovery in 2012.

For the year to date, revenue stood at TWD190.97 billion, down 28.6 per cent from the first 11 months of 2012.

Revenue for the first two months of Q4 was TWD30.47 billion, putting the company on track to meet its previous forecast of TWD40 billion to TWD45 billion. This is still below the TWD47 billion recorded in Q3, despite the potential for a boost during the lucrative Christmas holiday sales period.

According to a report earlier this year, Peter Chou, CEO of HTC, handed over some of his operational responsibilities to Cher Wang, the company’s chairwoman, in order to focus on product development.

HTC recently reported its first quarterly loss since becoming a public company, as the launch of new flagship products such as One, One mini and One max coupled with weakness in the fiercely competitive mid-tier.