HTC 'Drops the Ball' in Q4, Reports 70% Drop in Net Income

Possibly a sign more consumers are turning to Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Samsung for their smartphones -- or maybe just the end of a growth period for a company which rode on the wings of Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android OS all the way to the top of the global smartphone market -- HTC reported preliminary fourth-quarter numbers which showed net profit fell 70 percent to NT$4.46 billion. Quarterly revenue dipped 35 percent to NT$67.8 billion.

CFO Winston Yung said HTC "dropped the ball" in the fourth quarter and is using the first quarter as a "transitional period." HTC is expecting further declines in sales near-term while the company works on its form factor and product design.

Shipment numbers weren't provided by the company.

Recent data from comScore showed HTC gained about 40 basis points of U.S. mobile market share for the three months ended in February. The report also showed Google's Android acquired another 320 basis points of market share, bringing the OS's total to 50.1 percent. Over the same period, Apple gained just 150 basis points of mobile OS share to 30.2 percent.

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