New forecast numbers report that HTC could be producing fewer smartphones for the year. Since HTC is also focusing (and arguably leading) the VR industry with its HTC Vive, forecasters suggest that HTC could only be making 13 million units this year, returning a YoY difference of -26.8% from 2015’s production volume of 18 million units.
With HTC’s estimated production numbers falling, Asus, another Taiwanese phone maker, is said to be rising up 34.4% up from 2015 at 21.5 million units estimated to be produced this year. This drastic increase in production numbers could come from ASUS’ decision to switch from Intel-based mobile CPUs to Qualcomm CPUs which are more efficient and emit less heat than Intel’s mobile CPUs.
The same report suggests that the HTC 10 will likely receive very heated competition from Chinese brands therefore only producing 1 million units of the flagship for the whole year. We hope the success of the HTC proves these numbers wrong, as it was a great regrouping of HTC’s efforts to release a flagship.
The forecasts also outlined the fierce competition going on with Chinese phone makers and these manufacturers are starting to see popularity in Chinese smartphones rise up significantly with the highest forecasted YoY change seen in Oppo which is said to rise 59.2% over 2015’s number of 49 million units produced.
BBK Electronics-owned company, vivo, is also expected to see a sharp increase in production up from 47 million units in 2015. The same report also expects Huawei to produce 11 million more units in 2016. From these numbers, it seems that Huawei’s growth is slowing down, but its expected entry into the US market is not far off and could offset these numbers more.
It’s really difficult to exactly predict any industry when you’re only armed with previous year’s performance numbers. This is why we should take these kinds of forecasts with a grain of salt. There are too many variables in the world’s economy to accurately predict these kinds of performances.
