HTC posts Q2 report, revenue bounces back up from weak Q1

The numbers of Q2 are in and it seems HTC have bounced back from a weak first quarter, though the numbers are still down compared to last year. The company is pleased with its performance in Asia, North America and EMEA.
Revenues totaled $3 billion, down 26.8% from last year's $4.1 billion but up from Q1 of this year. Operating profit went up quarter on quarter to $273 million, but that's a 57.4% drop compared to Q2 2011. The operating margin was 9%.

During Q2, HTC launched the Desire V for the tree largest carriers in China and thinks it can become a major player on the Chinese market. Yesterday's report from Canalys points to a 389% growth in shipments in China for HTC year over year. Sales for Asia met HTC's expectations thanks to the One series.
In North America, HTC launched the EVO 4G LTE and DROID Incredible 4G LTE and hired Mike Woodward, former AT&T Vice President of Consumer Wireless Devices, who will be responsible for company’s sales, marketing and operations for the US and Canada markets. HTC's products are reportedly well received by carriers and the company underlined they will focus on consumer preference.
Anyway, looking towards the future, HTC predicts revenue of between $2.3 billion and $2.7 billion in Q3 and an operating margin of 7%.
If you're interested in more numbers on HTC financial quarter, check out their report over here (PDF).

AT&T HTC One X gets updated to Android 4.0.4

The AT&T version of the HTC One X is getting a new software update today that changes the software number to 2.20.502.7 and the Android version number to 4.0.4.
As of now, only one notable change is known that is brought about by this update and that is the change in behavior of the Recent Apps key on the phone.
You may be aware of the annoying problem on the HTC One X and the One S where, due to the lack of a hardware menu button, the OS would display a soft menu key at the bottom of the screen in apps that have not been optimized for the Holo theme. On the Galaxy Nexus this was not a big issue as there were already three keys down there but the One X has none on the display itself and this the menu key would be the only one there, taking up precious display real estate.
With this latest update, HTC now allows you to use the Recent Appe button as a menu button. You have three choices now. You can let it open the recent apps as it did before, make it open the application menu with a press and the recent apps list with a long press or vice versa.
It's a bit of a wonder why it took HTC so long to implement this, especially when they had a similar system on the One V. The One V did not offer a choice of options like this but it automatically hid the menu in every app and let you show menu options with a long press of the Recent Apps key.
Anyway, it's good that this feature was finally implemented as it was a major pet peeve for a lot of people. Hopefully, the international model will get this soon.

HTC to shut down its office in South Korea

HTC will be shutting down its office in South Korea, reports The Next Web.
The reason for this is reportedly due to HTC's inability to compete with Korean companies like Samsung and even LG on their home ground, where sales of HTC devices are reportedly “sluggish”. Apple is the only other non-native company that has done well in this market.

This does not bode well for HTC, who is also losing ground to Samsung in other market. HTC barely managed to scrape a profit in the second quarter. On the other hand, Samsung is growing from strengths and managed to achieve an impressive $5.9 billion in operating profits, overshadowed only by Apple in the mobile segment.
We'll see how HTC performed in the third quarter when they release their quarterly report. Hopefully, the One series of smartphones would have helped bolster the company's sales and profit figures.