Quick! Can you name each and every device HTC released last year? Doing so would be quite a task, but it looks like it'll become easier in 2012. After Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha revealed earlier this month that his company intends to release fewer phones in the new year, HTC U.K. CEO Phil Roberson has now said that he has a similar plan in place, affirming rumors that surfaced in December. Speaking to Mobile Magazine, Roberson said that HTC plans to pare down its smartphone portfolio in 2012 by focusing on a limited number of high-end "hero" handsets. The exec's full statement on the matter:
"We have to get back to focusing on what made us great – amazing hardware and a great customer experience. We ended 2011 with far more products than we started out with. We tried to do too much. So 2012 is about giving our customers something special. We need to make sure we do not go so far down the line that we segment our products by launching lots of different SKUs."
Roberson added that HTC will put less of a focus on cranking out tablets in 2012, though he added that the company isn't planning to stop working on slates altogether. Overall it sounds like a good plan. Not only should HTC focusing on releasing fewer products help it to make the ones it does push out even better, but it'll also give folks more happy time with their existing hardware before they begin lusting over what's in the pipeline. Exactly what kinds of devices HTC is planning to release in 2012 is still a mystery, but the good news is that we're just about a month out from Mobile World Congress, where we expect to find out more about what HTC's got up its sleeve for the coming year. Stay tuned!
Via Engadget, Mobile Magazine
