Taiwan's HTC beats six-month sales forecasts

Taiwan's leading smartphone maker High Tech Computer Corp (HTC) said Tuesday its sales in the six months to June had soared 41 percent from a year ago, beating analysts' expectations.

HTC's revenues in the six-month period came in at 98.2 billion Taiwanese dollars (3.1 billion US), compared with 69.8 billion Taiwanese dollars the previous year.

In the three months to June, revenues totalled 60.5 billion Taiwanese dollars and June sales hit 23.9 billion Taiwanese dollars -- both record highs, the company said.

Analysts said the latest figures beat their forecasts and reflected a switch of focus by HTC to newly emerging markets and lower-priced products.

"Normally, June is an off-peak season. The sales figures are really amazing and out of expectation," Michael Chiang of Taiwan International Securities told AFP.

The company makes handsets for a number of leading US companies and is the manufacturer of the Nexus One, unveiled by Apple rival Google in January.

(c) 2010 AFP