Record quarterly profit and on demand smartphone sales were posted by the Taiwanese company HTC which had earlier overtaken Nokia in early April, becoming the third largest phone maker in the world. The company said in a statement today that the net income in the first quarter had totalled at $14.8 billion, almost triple from $5 billion a year earlier. It also exceeded the estimate of $12.8 billion by the company itself. The rising demand of Google’s Android platform based smartphones and high connection speed enabled smartphones has led to the sales of HTC increasing to more than double their numbers last year. According to analyst estimates, the profits may further rise again in this quarter as the company will begin to offer new devices which include its first tablet computer.
It was stated by HTC in January that it expected to ship out 8.5 million units in this quarter which will be double of the last year’s figures and only the second highest after the 9.1 million units it sold in the fourth quarter. It, however, did not announce the shipment numbers of the first quarter today. In the second quarter, the net income may see a rise to $16.4 billion, according to an average of the estimates of three analysts.
The sales of HTC’s Thunderbolt, a 4G high speed connection enabled smartphone, equalled those of Apple’s iPhone in 61% of the Verizon Wireless stores in New York, and even outsold the iPhone in 28% of the stores, according to the reports. HTC Flyer, the first tablet from the Taiwanese company, was unveiled on the 15th of February and is expected to go on sale in the second quarter. The tablet is being called a close prospective competitor to Apple’s very popular iPad as it boasts of better specs and a higher resolution camera.
