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(Reuters) - Taiwan's HTC Corp has turned to advanced cameras and music functions for a new range of phones at the centre of its bid to recover from a rapid fall from grace in the tough and fickle smartphone market.
The world's No. 5 smartphone maker launched the HTC One series of models at the Barcelona Mobile World Congress on Sunday, taking the fight to Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc with fast graphic chips and advanced music and photography functions.
It is a fight that HTC was losing at the end of last year, when its sales slumped and investors dumped its shares on concerns the firm had lost its edge. Analysts said the new devices represented a pragmatic choice for a company that lacks the resources of its deep-pocketed rivals.
"HTC seems to have learned from mistakes it made in 2011," said Malik Saadi, Principal Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.
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"The company aims now to concentrate on what they do best and have built their brand on: bringing innovation through design of premium devices rather than spreading efforts across all segments of the market."
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Rapid innovation was the hallmark of HTC's lightning rise from obscure contract maker to purveyor of must-have gadgets. Its shares more than tripled in the 14 months to April 2011 and sales grew fourfold in 1- years as it rode a wave of popularity.
But an equally swift fall at the end of last year, as its phones failed to keep up with Apple and Samsung, saw HTC forced to issue a profit warning and its stock price plunge 42 percent, making it the worst performer among global smartphone companies.
Amid investor fears it would follow Finland's Nokia in a sharp downward spiral, HTC said earlier this month that revenue may fall as much as 36 percent for the first quarter, much worse than analysts' expectations.
One user of HTC phones said the fun factor was missing.
"When my contract comes up, I'm thinking of switching to Samsung's Galaxy Note because it doubles up as a tablet and looks quite fun to play around with," said Phoebe Leung, a software business analyst in Hong Kong who has been using HTC Aria over the past year or so.
Employees felt the sting of the downturn too, with some saying they felt let down by the company for its slide and lack of endeavor to bring in real innovation.
"It's not as fun working here as I expected," one engineer told Reuters.
Others said the company had tightened up on bonuses and had told staff that spending must be controlled, a change from a previous habit of lavish spending.
Its focus has been on turning around its fortunes, and senior management has said it will stick to its strategy of innovation for the high-end market and is confident the new models will get it back on track.
