Jenny Hsu and Aries Poon – The Wall Street Journal, 06/23/2012
TAIPEI—HTC Corp. 2498.TW -2.91% said Saturday it is closing its office in São Paulo, which mainly oversaw sales and distribution in Latin America, as the Taiwanese smartphone maker faces growing headwinds amid intensifying competition from rivals at different price points.
Analysts said HTC’s pullout of Brazil is in line with the company’s strategy of focusing on other emerging markets such as China and India, where the mid- to high-price customer segments—HTC’s primary markets—have more room for growth and where the Taiwanese brand is better known.
Brazil is one of the world’s fastest-growing smartphone markets, driven by a wide range of low-cost devices, considerable handset subsidies from network operators and dominance of prepaid packages that cost consumers a lot less than postpaid deals.
