HTC - Here's To CHA-CHING

Okay, well perhaps the headline is a bit misleading, but it works, right...?

It appears HTC have managed to shore-up their finances - for now at least. The new year brought news of December wrapping-up a third successive profit quarter for HTC, after a seemingly relentless string of negative news for the company.

As I reported at the beginning of last year, HTC were looking to their mid-tier smartphones to drag them out from peril, and it seems to have worked. The reduction in reliance on their top-tier models was in keeping with pressures from a plateau in smartphone innovation at the top-end, allowing a shrinking in the distance between premium and the budget markets - pushed in particular by the Eastern manufacturers. 

The HTC One M8, much like the HTC One M7, was critically acclaimed as industry leading, but HTC's flagship wasn't the hero to drag them out of the fire. It was actually Robin, the next-level down, that HTC can thank. Handsets such as the returning Desire range have performed well in emerging markets.

Companies such as Xiaomi and Huawei are eating away at the market share of the big two (Apple and Samsung) but more importantly, they have been making life extremely difficult for those sharing the 15% left. Xiaomi in particular, are eating away at all the competition with 61m handsets last year, and outsold Apple in Q42014 - not too shabby for a company that started just three years ago. 

It's good to see HTC getting their heads out of the water for the time-being. Moving back to focusing on the quality of products is crucial. This pressure from other manufacturers will only intensify in 2015, and HTC will have to pull something special out of the bag to retain quarterly profits in 2015.

What do you think of HTC's 2015 position? Will it be a similar story this time next year? Comment below or contact me on Twitter: @tomkelk

The Perils of Forcing Mobile Market Saturation

It's been a while since my last blog so apologies for that! I have little excuse but a short holiday as distraction.

With the release of the iPhone 5, the Android vs Apple debate has intensified with both parties feeling more superiority than ever. It made me think of the perceptions of different company's and the impact of an attempted market saturation on this perception.
      Apple famously release a single phone every 18 or so months and this makes its sales success even more impressive. Their 'one size fits all' models have captured an audience and got it hooked. Considering the competition, it really is an incredible feat. Regular readers will know that I'm not the biggest fan of the Apple ecosystem and its 'no way out' virtuous loop but you have to admire their success in the execution of that model. HTC initially followed this model with the the flagship HTC Hero. This has limited, and steady success but they wanted market share so they embarked on an old-school Nokia process of attempted market saturation bringing out the Desire, Desire HD, Desire S, Desire Z, Wildfire etc etc inside not much more than 18 months. Does this cheapen a brand in the eyes of the consumer, does it confuse the consumer or does it give the perception of power for a brand? Could the iPhone be successful because it is the simple option?

So has this attempted market saturation affected the perception of the likes of HTC and Samsung? Do people look at both company's and too readily remember the perhaps negative experiences of their friends who used each company's budget models and automatically dismiss the higher-end models on that basis? Perhaps that was poorly worded but I hope you see what I'm getting at. I've heard friends turn their noses up at the HTC One Series because of a friend who had the Wildfire and didn't like it. They then compare the Wildfire with the iPhone being completely oblivious to the sizeable difference in price.

I guess there is a big difference between HTC and Samsung. Samsung is a reputable and long-established, wide-ranging electronics company, HTC do not have that luxury as they joined the smartphone race as a young company. Their meteoric rise and fall in stock has been well publicised and that greed of shareholders could well be behind HTC's eagerness to grow at a rapid rate instead of focus solely on a good reputation. For many the first impression of HTC would have been the budget models and that affects long-term image. However, the counter is that HTC would not be in the public eye. Is the cost of image repair less than the cost of public awareness? And is that completely outweighed by impatience?

I would love to hear views on your perceptions of these brands and if you view either brand negatively because of their budget models after market saturation attempts?

How HTC got it right with Customer Service

Its been a while since my latest blog but the reason for that has been the inspiration behind writing this. Over a week ago I dropped my HTC One X causing the screen to smash. I was just unlucky but still, I nearly sobbed on the side of the street... (restricted blogging, no mobile internet and worse still, less Twitter for a week!!) anyway, this leads me on to a bit of a story about customer service. In the same way that is important to highlight when a company treats you poorly, it is equally important to highlight when a company does something right and impresses a consumer.
     Now we all know about bad customer service. We have all experienced it, and we all complain about it but more as a moan to each other. I've had my fair share of bad experiences (Virgin with their broadband and Orange contribute to the majority!!) but what do we expect from customer service? If you get what you want are you satisfied and content? Or are you happy? Conversely, if we don't get what we want, do we then give up too easily because it is what is expected?

My journey with HTC began in 2008 where I got the first HTC flagship phone, the phone that put the Taiwanese company on the map - The Hero. Since then I have owned the HTC Desire, and the Desire HD before in June, I purchased the HTC One X. Am I an HTC fanboy? I wouldn't say so. Although interested in all new HTC releases I do not queue in anticipation and upgrade immediately. I would be more than happy to select a different phone if I believed it was better. For example, I could have gone with the Samsung Galaxy Series, or I could have gone with the Sony Xperia for example but I love HTC. I love the quality that HTC produce, but without the pretension.

(Sidenote: I wasn't a big fan of the attempted period of market saturation by HTC, even though they still managed to produce  high-quality budge phones like the Wildfire, but that is a different story.)

I digress. So what happen to me when I dropped my phone? As someone who recommends HTC to everyone, alongside having owned a succession of HTC phones without any problems or requests for repair, I decided to make a point of a couple of issues in addition to the smashed screen and send them to HTC. I had been previously told that it would cost between £125-£150 to get the screen repaired which is, in anyone's books, a large amount of money. I voiced my concern about the amount, plus explaining that the phone was occasionally refusing to automatically recover coverage after it was lost and occasionally overheating. In the greater scheme of things, these were minor issues, certainly not affecting my enjoyment and delight with the One X but I felt it necessary to point these out when considering repairing the phone. In the main, I was hoping to get a bit of money off the repair!!
     I forwarded the email to the Head of UK Customer Care and very quickly received a phone-call back. The woman was delightful. Apologetic, helpful and understanding. The major difference was that I felt like my case was important to HTC; I felt like a valued customer. This is a theme that continued. HTC offered to pick-up my phone, free of charge, so that the technical team could look it over. Quickly, efficiently and conveniently my phone was collected. Following this, I was informed that HTC would repair my screen, look at the phone and provide me with a complimentary case, all free of charge.

Now, obviously I was delighted by this news but what should be taken from this was the professional and entirely appropriate way that HTC handled my situation. For that, they need great praise. They didn't have to do this but they valued me as a customer and it showed. What they have guaranteed is that I will continue to buy HTC phones, continue to praise HTC and encourage others to choose their devices, all of this from a small screen repair and a friendly yet professional employee. Not much eh!

The point of this blog is certainly not to encourage people to cause a fuss for no reason but to give due praise HTC where I believe it has been earned. Whilst it isn't what happened to me, it is almost customary for the British to moan about customer service without trying to rectify it. It is really important for consumers to get what they deserve from a company. If you have paid good money for a product, and it doesn't meet those expectations, then talk to the company. Give them a chance to help you out. I did with HTC and look where it got me.

P.S: As another positive sidenote for HTC, even with a badly smashed screen, the One X was exemplary and performed without fault. Just another reason why it is one hell of a phone!!