Taiwan's HTC reports 79 per cent drop in 3Q profit

TAIPEI (AP) - Taiwan smartphone maker HTC Corp. reported a 79 per cent drop in third quarter profit as intensifying competition from Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. hurt sales.

HTC said today its profit totaled 3.9 billion New Taiwan dollars (S$121 million) on revenue of NT$70 billion in the three months through September. It was HTC's fourth consecutive fall in quarterly profit.

The company predicts revenue to drop below NT$60 billion in the fourth quarter despite traditional pre-Christmas buying and its introduction of two new models running on Microsoft's Windows 8 software.

HTC became the first maker of smartphones based on Google's Android software in 2008 and its sales surged. It entered a sharp decline in the second half of 2011.