HTC has always been associated with quality built devices and going with the decision to be an early LTE adopter was meant to launch it to new heights. Winston Yung, HTC's chief financial officer (CFO) however has recently admitted that perhaps that was a mistake.
The LTE devices from HTC proved to be left wanting for better design: battery life being the worst problem. The second would be the thicker form factor to accomodate a bigger battery.
This has been called by some analyst to be the reason as to the announcement of HTC's reduced profits - the Q4 revenue for 2011 was USD3.48 billion, about 26% lower than last year. Of course, that's not just because of early LTE adoption and investments - it's also because of increased competition with the likes of Samsung and Apple.
The LTE devices were obviously not selling as well as hoped and a new line up for LTE devices will only happen in Q2 of this year; giving time for HTC to make adjustments needed. With Mobile World Congress approaching soon, HTC is expected to make some announcements on how 2012 will pan out for them.
On the other hand, some analyst are saying that perhaps Apple's stance to wait until the LTE chips requiring less power and small enough to fit into the iPhone, is a good call. That's especially since that LTE coverage isn't nationwide yet - in most countries.
So perhaps, not jumping on the bandwagon too fast is working out for Apple as LTE technology becomes better refined for mobile devices. This is yet another example how Apple has decided to wait out for technology to mature at the risk of being behind competitors (Apple did the same for 3G as well). Besides that, it would also mean that LTE headsets should also be 3G enabled to jump onto the network in areas where LTE is not available. That can really make for fatter mobile devices.
That just wouldn't do for Apple apparently.
HTC is obviously not the only one facing this - it's just that the others aren't saying anything yet about how LTE is working out for them or how their plans are supposed to work out heading towards the newer technology.
