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Taiwanese manufacturers, ASUS and HTC are beginning to feel the pressure from the many smartphone manufacturers that are popping up in China as of late, that’s according to a report out of Digitimes. The report notes that these two manufacturers have felt the affect in China, but also India and other countries in Southeast Asia. This is due to the increasing competition in Asia, and the presence of stronger competitors like Huawei, Xiaomi and others. ASUS shipped about 20 million smartphones in 2016, that was below their target of 25 million. Part of this was due to the tight supply of displays and cameras for their smartphones, which lead to having less smartphones available for users to purchase, and that means a smaller number of sales.
HTC’s recent decline is no surprise, the company has been struggling for a few years now worldwide, so to see them struggling in Asia is not a surprise either. Especially with there being many more competitors in that region, and competitors that are selling their products basically at cost. HTC has tried (like ASUS) to ramp up their shipments in the first quarter of the year in China and other markets in the Eastern part of the world, but it hasn’t worked out as well as they had hoped. Some of the main companies bringing competition to these two smartphone manufacturers are Huawei, OPPO, Vivo, Gionee and Xiaomi. All of which are big names in Asia, and even in Europe as well.
Things won’t be getting easier for ASUS or HTC in the near future, as these manufacturers from China won’t be letting up and if anything there will be more popping up in the coming years. So it’s clear that both ASUS and HTC need to change how they market their devices, where they focus their efforts and even what devices they are wanting to sell to their customers. For example, in India, many prefer the cheaper devices, that sell for around Rs. 10,000 (that’s just over $100 USD), so something like the HTC U Ultra isn’t that popular over there, but one of their mid-range Desire smartphones might be. But HTC had decided to stop with the Desire lineup and stick to just high-end flagship smartphones in 2017.