HTC published April sales figures which give an unusual opportunity for positivity at the company, following its uninspiring first quarter.

The company said that monthly sales of TWD5.75 billion were up 38.8 per cent over its March figures, although down 57.5 per cent from April 2015. The sales boost is significant, following the introduction of its new flagship – HTC 10 – and following availability of its Vive VR products.

In a conference call, CFO Chialin Chang indicated that although HTC has stopped providing guidance for its financials, it is seeing sequential improvement quarter-on-quarter. He also suggested that the company is working toward breakeven in smartphones in Q3.

HTC has noted on multiple occasions that it suffered from a poor performance with its flagship devices. With HTC 10 seeing “good traction”, the company is looking for it to “bring back the momentum and halo effect”.

VR subsidiary
The finance chief was also quizzed about the creation of a new subsidiary which looks likely to be the home for HTC’s virtual reality activities, a move which was not welcomed with open arms by investors.

“We think this is a very high potential market, and we are going to put in resource to make sure that we have a long-term success in this sector and this industry, and hopefully that will benefit our shareholders. I want to make it clear that whatever we do structurally, we want to make sure that this is in the best interest for all our shareholders,” Chang reassured.

HTC’s Q1 results actually contained little in the way of surprises: the company releases sales figures on a month-by-month basis, and also had to open-up on profitability after a request from the Taiwan stock market authorities.

A quarterly loss of TWD2.6 billion compared with a prior year profit of TWD360 million, on revenue which fell 64 per cent to TWD14.8 billion. But the loss also came after a TWD2.1 billion property sale: on an operating level, it lost TWD4.8 billion, compared with prior-year breakeven.

The company also said it will “continue to streamline processes and optimise resources to develop products in the most effective way”. The CFO said that trimming is likely to be largely complete in Q2.