Following a rough third quarter that included a net loss of approximately $101 million USD, HTC today revealed that it narrowly avoided a repeat performance in the fourth quarter.
The Taiwanese manufacturer reports that it saw an operating loss of NT$1.56 billion ($52.1 million USD) in Q4 2013, its second consecutive quarterly operating loss. However, HTC managed to earn a net profit of NT$310 million ($10.3 million USD) for the quarter thanks to the sale of its stake in Beats Electronics. HTC's total revenue for the quarter finished at NT$42.89 billion ($1.4 billion USD), a drop from NT$47.05 billion in the previous quarter.
While 2013 brought with it the HTC One, which earned quite a bit of praise from reviewers and consumers alike, the year as a whole was pretty bumpy for HTC. The company ran into component shortages that affected its flagship products, was found to have infringed upon patents held by Nokia, saw several high-level executive departures and posted the aforementioned net loss in Q3 2013.
Despite all of these problems, HTC CEO Peter Chou is still trying hard to return his firm to its former glory. The exec recently said that he would be offloading most of his duties to chairwoman Cher Wang so that he could focus more on product development. Whether or not Chou will actually be able to turn things around for HTC remains to be seen, but it's good to see that the CEO is dedicated to finding a way to make things better for the High-Tech Computer Corporation.
