Taiwan's HTC Corp is increasing advertising to make sure sales of the One M8 smartphone lives up to company expectations.
After selling one in every 10 smartphones worldwide in the third quarter of 2011, HTC reached the top of the U.S. market, according to Strategy Analytics.
Its global share has since dropped to 2 percent along with a share price which dropped 86 percent.
Sales of predecessor flagship One M7 failed to match the phone's rave reviews however, mainly due to disruptions in the supply chain and a marketing campaign that many analysts have called "brash and confusing," according to Reuters.
HTC wants to avoid any confusion for its M8 however, as it has planned a "more effective and efficient marketing," Chief Financial Officer Chialin Chang said at a quarterly investor conference this week.
Chang added that the M8 will "lead a diversified product portfolio" which should help HTC retrieve market share in developed countries.
The M8's toned-down advertising campaign with
HTC hired actor Gary Oldman to help advertise its M8, and it has been well received by most commentators so far, who have called it an improvement over last year's campaign starring Robert Downey Jr.
As a result, the M8, which was released in late March, is selling quicker than the M7, Chang said.
"We are increasing our media ad buys in 2014 over 2013," said Chang, according to Reuters.
HTC expects revenue to fall in a range of T$65 billion ($2.16 billion) to T$70 billion in the April-June quarter. This would be below the T$71 billion the company made during the same period a year earlier.
HTC ended 28 months of on-year sales declines in the quarter that ended in March, according to Reuters.
Chang believes that HTC will "dominate the mid-tier" and "participate in the affordable segment," which he defined as prices somewhere between a range of $150 to $200.
"We are aiming for incremental market share gain at all levels," Chang said. "The (M8) volume this year is better than last year, so if the market stays the same then our market share will grow."
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