HTC Promises New Wearable In Time For Christmas

HTC-Watch

HTC has confirmed that it will launch a new wearable this year in an effort to turn its fortunes around following a decline in revenue for two years running. The Taiwanese firm will also launch a second-generation One smartphone, and it will place a renewed focus on marketing.

“We feel positive and optimistic about 2014 when compared to 2013,” said Chang Chialin, chief financial officer and head of global sales for HTC, during an interview with Bloomberg.

Wearables are clearly going to be a focus for a lot of consumer technology companies throughout 2014. We’ve already seen new Pebbles, we can expect a new and improved Galaxy Gear from Samsung, and rumor has it we’ll also see smartwatches from Google, LG, and even Apple.

It’s not too surprised to hear HTC will be throwing its hat into the ring as well, then. The company has been struggling to compete with Samsung and other Android handset makers in recent years — despite producing some excellent devices — so it cannot rely on the smartphone to save its business.

HTC plans to launch its first smartwatch before Christmas, but it has problems to solve before then.

“Many years ago we started looking at smartwatches and wearables, but we believe that we really have to solve the battery problems and the LCD light problems,” said HTC chairman Cher Wang. “These are customer-centric problems.”

In addition to a new wearable, HTC will launch a second-generation One — believed to be called the One Plus — and it will put a greater effort into product marketing. Wang admits that the company never believed marketing to be “that important,” but realizes “this is really not very good.”

In comparison, Samsung, which has had huge success with its own Android-powered devices, has made massive investments in marketing. Last November, Asymco reported that the South Korean company was spending more on marketing than Apple, HP, Dell, and even Coca-Cola.