Taiwanese tech giant HTC’s reported on Tuesday its sixth consecutive year of net losses last year but noted its cost-saving measures had led to smaller annual cuts.
According to the Taoyuan City-based firm, its net losses for 2021 totalled $108 million USD, or a loss of $3.75 NT per share, down from $7.27 NT in share losses the previous year.
The news comes as the company streamlined its operations amid a wave of new rivals in the global smartphone industry, prompting it to pivot to virtual reality (VR).
Analysts cited by media reports have stated the move accounted for a fraction of its overall sales, causing further profit losses amid its struggle in the smartphone market.
Google’s largest acquisitions:
Motorola Mobility $12.5 billion
Nest $3.2 billion
Doubleclick $3.1 billion
Looker $2.6 billion
Fitbit $2.1 billion
YouTube $1.65 billion
Waze $1.15 billion
HTC Pixel unit $1.1 billion
AdMob $750 million
ITA $700 million https://t.co/5gAWb0Ubig— Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) March 7, 2022
HTC sold its smartphone original device manufacturing (ODM) infrastructure to Google Inc, leading to the Google Pixel series of handsets, reports added.
Despite the setbacks, the firm boosted its sales to $185.2 million USD ($5.25 billion NT) and increased its gross margin of sales to 31.1 percent, up from 27 percent in 2020, reports confirmed.
The news comes as HTC taps new technologies and devices to boost its standing in the tech market, offering the industry promising headsets and immersive platforms for a host of uses.
HTC Metaverse Ambitions and Milestones
HTC’s extended reality (XR) wing, HTC VIVE, has begun stepping up efforts to develop key technologies to build the Metaverse and increase accessibility to consumers and enterprises.
The firm recently struck a deal with German motor entertainment company holoride, with the former providing its novel VIVE Flow VR goggles to the latter’s GPS-enabled movie and gaming platform.
HTC VIVE also developed new wrist trackers in January this year aimed at providing affordable, precise body positioning and tracking for immersive content creators by pairing with Focus 3 headsets.
The company also collaborated with Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia in December for a world-first VR attraction using bespoke and immersive ‘Emerald Masks’ along with physical and 4D effects.
HTC VIVE has also collaborated with Psychic VR Labs to develop the STYLY platform, which curates content from artists and real-time 3D (RT3D) designers.
HTC also debuted its VIVEVERSE platform for distributing applications and immersive experiences for headset owners as well as mobile and PC users.
The open-source platform connects thousands of interactive XR experiences, applications, and games on one distribution store and integrates cryptocurrencies and NFTs on VIVE Flow devices.
According to Joseph Lin, General Manager of VIVEPORT, the VIVEVERSE aimed to offer an “open, interoperable, and secure virtual environment to everybody.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelon, Spain, he added he anticipated everyone on the VIVEVERSE platform would have access to live and interact “with their friends [and] families together” in the Metaverse environment.
At the same event, HTC VIVE unveiled a cutting-edge, portable Reign Core 5G solution aimed at distributing low-latency, deployable networks for enterprise infrastructure.
