HTC’s Bumpy Road Continues as First-Quarter Sales Drop 35 Percent

HTC on Friday released unaudited first-quarter sales figures that show the company continues to struggle amid competition from Samsung, Apple and others.

The Taiwanese cellphone maker said that first-quarter revenues were NT$67.8 billion (U.S. $2.3 billion), a nearly 35 percent drop from a year ago. HTC had predicted it would be a rough quarter when it last reported earnings in February, and the revenue figure was in the range of what the company had said to expect.

The company had been seeing its sales doubling from year-ago levels until hitting a wall in the second half of last year.

HTC is hoping to turn things around with its new One line of high-end Android phones, due to hit the market this month. The company has a major global ad campaign around those products.

This week, HTC also announced an Evo-branded variant of the line that will be among the first phones for Sprint’s new LTE network.