Taipei, May 5 (CNA) Chinese consumers have poured cold water on the HTC 10, the latest flagship model of Taiwan's HTC Corp. (宏達電), with preorder sales data there showing a lack of interest in the new device in the China market.
HTC kicked off a preorder sales campaign on two major Chinese e-commerce platforms -- TMall (天貓) and Jingdong Mall (京東) -- on April 25. Eleven days into the preorder sale, only 251 units of the HTC 10 have been ordered.
Market sources said that Chinese consumers are irritated by a move by HTC to use a lower grade of specifications for the HTC 10 offered in the China market than the version provided in other markets around the world.
Although HTC has priced the HTC 10 in China at 3,799 Chinese yuan (US$584) or about NT$19,000, which is lower than the NT$24,900 set in the Taiwan market, Chinese consumers still did not want to buy the pricing strategies.
On April 12, HTC unveiled the HTC 10 in Taipei, New York and London. The new flagship model has a 5.2-inch HD Super LCD 5 screen and Qualcomm's top-of-the-line quad-core Snapdragon 820 chip paired with 4GB of RAM, while the model also features a 12-UltraPixel rear camera and a 3,000mAh battery.
According to market sources, the version of the HTC 10 available in the China market uses only a mid-tier processor -- Qualcomm's Snapdragon 652 -- instead of the Snapdragon 820 chip, as part of HTC's lower pricing strategy for that market. HTC was not immediately available for comment on the China sales data.
Preorder sales in China will continue until May 8, and official sales will begin a day later. However, the weak preorder sales data has raised concerns over future shipments of the HTC 10 in the huge China market, the sources said.
However, HTC has said that sales of the HTC 10 in Taiwan have been better than expected, boost shipments in 2016.
Earlier Thursday, local media said that HTC is planning to spin off a new company that was set up at the end of last year with the aim of developing its virtual reality business. The spinoff will allow HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang (王雪紅) to exercise 100 percent control over the VR company, which could lead HTC itself to lose its momentum in VR business development, the report said.
Along with the slow preorder sales of the HTC 10 in China, shares of HTC fell 10 percent, the maximum daily decline, to close at NT$74.40 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, where the weighted index ended down 0.21 percent Thursday.
(By Esme Jiang and Frances Huang)
ENDITEM/J