Case Analysis
--HTC Corp.in 2009
Class: Competitive Marketing Strategy
Student Name: Fisher Yu
1. Evaluate HTC’s performance to date. What are its competitive advantages and vulnerabilities? Be sure to elaborate on HTC and its competitors’ positioning on performance and cost.
Financial performance of HTC compared with its main competitors
For this part, we will be using ROA (return on assets), ROE (return on equity), and profit margin to evaluate HTC’s abilities to generate profits and to control its cost with comparison to other manufacturers.
With reference to the financial ratios of HTC in Exhibit 1a, over five years (2004 to 2008), its average net profit margin was 18.8%, return on assets 34.2%, and return on equity
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HTC will face fewer barriers when its new products entering Chinese market since they are a Taiwan based company. * HTC has a diverse customer base (no one client held more than 10% of HTC’s business), which means that HTC is more risk resistant. * HTC’s average product life cycle is approximately 3 quarters, which is about half of the industry average. This will give HTC more flexibility to react on market responses.
Vulnerabilities
* Revenue generated from selling Microsoft mobile devices may be affected by the downward trend of the popularity of the Microsoft mobile operating system. * Giving up on the ODM business means that they lose a less-risky business that can gain them continuous cash flow. Now the growth of the company completely depends on the sales of their own branded mobile devices. * The fast shift of the mobile device industry and the fierce competition (especially from Samsung) may force a company out of business in a few years. * Ability to negotiate with operators in the US may affect its development in the US. This may limit its growth in the future given that the US is the No.1 smartphone market all over the world. * Lawsuits from Apple over patents may further affect HTC extending its business in the US market. * Its so-called innovative or revolutionary products do not gain the company as much credits as Samsung or Apple does. The market will test its ability to
Another competing business or company, business B, will come along and provide a better way that will make consumers go to them instead of business A. Business A will have to come up with a better business strategy to out beat the competition and bring back the customers it lost and others and so on goes the cycle. This is what the CEO of Whole Foods means by the phrase “no business stays on top of its niche forever.” Another example will be Apple’s iPhones and keyboard phones. Apple used to be only a music, electronic company (iPod and iMac), and it sought out the phone business, which was dominated by Blackberry, LG, Samsung, etc. It was the first phone to not include a keyboard, everything was on a touch screen, and had internet access with music. It was thought to be a failure since it was very different but it proved to be the opposite. It became very popular with consumers and soon after many phone companies began to change their phones into touch screen phones. So far many companies have tried to be on top of Apple but have failed. Does this mean Apple is lucky and won’t go through what the CEO of Whom Food stated? I believe it will soon have a tough competitor in the near future (5 years from now) that will come along with interesting features that Apple’s iPhones don’t have. Meaning that some people will leave Apple’s iPhones and go with the next big thing whatever it
This article talks about why Blackberry maker RIM may still have hope in the smartphone industry; meanwhile acknowledging that there is no longer any debate that BlackBerry is yesterday's technology. According to the article, RIM's once irrefutable position among business and government customers shows signs of eroding, as rivals like iPhone maker Apple make inroads. Competitive pressure in the U.S. is likely to increase if, as expected, Verizon Communications’
China is the world’s largest mobile phone market. Due to the large size of the Chinese cell phone market and its potential for long-term continual growth, competition for access to China’s consumer markets is intense. For the first ten years after entering China, Motorola had no competition but now competitive threats from other multinational companies like Nokia, Siemens, Samsung, and local producers like TCL are a cause for concern within Motorola.
HTC is an engineering and manufacturing company, initially operating as an original device manufacturer for the PDA and smartphone markets. HTC made the decision to evolve into a branded company and experienced considerable growth. Scaling up to meet rising global demands has presented significant challenges for HTC. The leadership team is faced with aligning the firm’s global functions along with evaluating & executing a plan of attack in an intensely competitive technology-driven business climate.
The PESTEL analysis can be used to analysis the market environment in which HTC operates in, they include:
The phone has been one of the most successful models ever, and did roaring business couple of years ago, but its heydays are over and Motorola cannot bank on it anymore.
In recent years, many things went wrong with HTC. The reason is that they could not create a competitive smartphone. The U11 model was supposed to lead the Taiwanese manufacturer out of this whirlpool. Did it work out? Let’s find out.
Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and low cost business rivals interrupt the market, and Nokia’s efforts to fix their worsening conjuncture are progressively useless. Stephen Elop’s option of the Windows Phone operating system is a catastrophe that results in the sale of the handset enterprise to Microsoft (Schrage, 2011).
Its expansion in China is allowing Lenovo to push its products into more emerging markets, slowly increasing the global profile for its Smartphones. This is ultimately the strategy Chinese firms should pursue, as it allows them to increase brand awareness of their Smartphones. Western Firms have seen their market share fall, because Chinese firms have been able to launch more products which are similar but have a few exclusive features for the Chinese market. The other big factor is price. Although Chinese mobile operators such as China Unicom subsidise the cost of products such as the Apple IPhone, the cost is still beyond the vast majority of Chinese mobile phone users whose average salary is around £5,000 a year. In 2011 smartphones costing less than $200 made up 40% of Smartphones, whereas for devices costing in excess of $700 accounted for only 11% of the market. This shows that the low-margin cheaper products made by Lenovo and other Chinese manufacturers are clear winners, over the higher quality products made by Apple and Samsung. It is also apparent that there is also a clear preference for the Google produced Android Operating System over rival ones such as IOS by Apple. The Android System between 2011 and 2012 has built a dominant market share making up 86.1% of the total Smartphone operating systems in China.
HTC is one of the world’s most successful and innovative manufacturing company. Their original business plan was to manufacture laptops which had issues because it had “high production costs, technical glitches, and lack of brand recognition”. HTC tackled the PDA market in 2011 and reported their first profit that year. In the early 2000s, their main manufacturing segments was the original design manufacturer (ODM) for branded handset companies and producing phone for wireless network operators. They focused their resources on customized approaches with mobile operators to differentiate HTC from other contract manufacturers which helped them gained a sense of control over their product portfolio. In 2006, they were facing other competitors who were catching up in the ODM market, which gave Palm and HP, two of HTC’s biggest customers, to look for different partners that were cheaper alternatives. Peter Chou, the new CEO that took over 2006, recognized that their company lacked branding. They needed to set themselves apart from its competitors and this will lead to greater control over the company’s future. Thus, is the reason why Chou wanted to release its own smartphone. Serval directors on board disagreed and was worried that “their operator customers could view HTC as a competitor, creating conflict of interest between HTC’s own brand sales and customized phones for the operators” (Alcacer, Kim, Yoffie, 2012). HTC’s marketing strategy was
“HTC 's mission is to become the leading innovative supplier of mobile information and communication devices by providing value-added design, world-class manufacturing and logistic and service capabilities.”
HTC Corporation (HTC) is a Taiwanese operation founded in May 1997 in Taiwan, which is one of the most influential, creative and leading players in global telecommunications with an n increasing influence in the industry’s future (HTC quietly billion, 2012). HTC’s portfolio includes smartphones and tablets powered by the Android and HTC Sense™ operating systems (HTC Annual Report, 2010). Focusing on smartphone market; devoting to innovation and design in the mobile phone industry; and committing to develop exceptional technology and products to cater for the diverse and exceed needs of users are HTC’s current brand strategies. In addition, HTC response to market changes fast and provides
HTC had been working hard to please their customers with a flagship phone that could compete with Samsung’s Galaxy line and Apple 's iPhones.
The principle business opponents for HTC Corporation are Samsung Corporation which makes and markets distinctive assortments of electronics like Smartphones, Televisions, Laptops and Tablets; Apple Company specializes on iPhones and Techno Company. These organizations have offered a stiff rivalry henceforth the need to have a steady organization structure and also great advertising techniques to improve competitive edge (Edwards, J., 2014).
When making the make-or-buy decision, it is necessary to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant costs. Relevant costs for making the product are all the costs that could be avoided by purchasing the product. An avoidable cost can be eliminated in whole or partially through choosing one alternative over another. In the HTC