Q1. Evaluate HTC’s performance till date. What are its competitive strengths and weaknesses?
Performance review:
• The last few years for HTC has been poor in terms of profits and sales.
• The strategic partnership between HTC and Beats audio has come to an end.
• HTC’s shares declined by than 50% in 2012.
• As of January, 2015, HTC’s sale have finally stopped dipping.
Competitive advantages:
• It had an internal research center named “Magic Lab” especially for UI and product design.
• Founders struck the right chord with a mix of technical and functional expertise, a major reason for success in initial years.
• HTC was successful in strategically forming alliances with organizations like Qualcomm, Compaq, and Microsoft etc.
• IPAQ which was
The major advantage for HTC is strong partnerships with leading firms, this helps HTC sustain in the market.
HTC has a competitive advantage for value for money, where its offering High quality products for relatively low prices, this advantage is temporary as its competitors are following the same path.
HTC holds a sustainable advantage in its multimedia offerings with sound quality, camera quality and unmatched display being the key factors.
HTC has a wide product portfolio, this is due to offering latest technology and expectations from the customers, this shows that HTC adapts to customer needs and hence it has a sustained advantage in adaptability.
HTC has an efficient organizational structure, effective style of learning, and creative HR process, though all these are followed by its competitors too, giving HTC a competitive parity in human capital.
Competitive Disadvantages:
• There were lot of disputes regarding patent infringements with Apple.
• HTC lacked AT&T’s support, though Apple had that advantage.
• HTC had a strong presence in Asian market, but not in US
• Leverage the ‘Silicon Valley’ culture existing in the firm, to innovate more and explore newer ideas and technologies.
• HTC has always fallen behind Samsung and Apple in terms of marketing its product, It needs to improve on it.
• HTC follows an open work environment for employees where employees are encouraged to innovate and share ideas, this positive attitude would be fruitful in the long run.
• R&D expenses need to be increased to face tough competition from Apple and Samsung, HTC should try to focus more on product innovation to stay ahead of the game.
• HTC should concentrate on Asian Markets as the sales have increased from 18 to 20%(Exhibit 2b) in 3 years.
• As per Exhibit 9 HTC needs to diversify itself into lower price Smartphone market.
• HTC should regularly update its OS version to keep its product intact with latest technology.
• HTC is having lot of troubles with patent lawsuit, hence it must create an alliance with other companies to boost its patent