HTC published December sales figures which showed no sign of let-up from its ongoing sales slide, with full year revenue more than halving in 2018.

December 2018 sales of TWD1.35 billion ($43.8 million) were down 66.4 per cent year-on-year, and down 8.2 per cent from the previous month. Full year revenue of TWD23.7 billion fell 61.8 per cent, marking its lowest for 15 years – before the smartphone pioneer began its strong growth trajectory.

At the moment, there is little sign where HTC’s turnaround will come from, and indeed the full year drop was worse than for previous periods. Reports late last year suggested that it would continue its focus on mid-tier and high-tier devices, although it was mooted it will look to extend the lifecycle of its existing U12 series a little longer before announcing a new flagship.

But the company is also making investments in other areas. It has placed a bet on VR through its Vive subsidiary, although it has not so far reaped rewards from the nascent market, and new VR products may be announced at CES 2019 next week.

On the smartphone front, the company recently launched its Exodus 1 smartphone, jumping on the blockchain bandwagon.

And it has also recently touted its 5G capabilities, with the company creating a mobile router that has already won deals from Sprint and Telstra. It has not revealed its 5G smartphone plans, although the groundwork it has done with the Qualcomm-powered router may work to its advantage.