HTC has published its final Q4 2011 financial results, confirming the 2.49% year-on-year slip in earnings revealed in last month's unaudited numbers. In the fourth quarter of last year, HTC brought in NT$101.42 billion, down from NT$104 during the same period in 2010. There was also a gloomy outlook for the first quarter of 2012, with projected revenues of NT$65-70 billion (down from NT$104.16 billion in Q1 2011), and a much lower operating margin of around 7.5%.

The manufacturer said the Q4 slump, and expected weakness in Q1 2012, were a "temporary phenomenon" due to its current "product cycle transition", as it looks to unveil new handsets at Mobile World Congress later this month.

HTC faced strong competition in late 2011, with a resurgent Apple launching the iPhone 4S, as well as growing dominance of the Android space by Korean rival Samsung. The company has recently indicated its plans to do more with fewer models in 2012, focusing on stronger "hero" devices.

New models unveiled in Barcelona in a few weeks are expected to include the "HTC Ville", which leaked last week, and the quad-core "HTC Edge."

Source: HTC

HTC is the latest company with Android ties to announce its fourth quarter 2011 earnings this morning. The Taiwanese handset maker pulled in 102.4 billion Taiwanese dollars (about $3.48 billion USD), with earnings per share (EPS) of 13.06 Taiwanese Dollars ($0.44). Analysts had expected revenue of 144.6 billion Taiwanese dollars, and EPS of 17.03.

HTC’s earnings numbers come after two quarters of stellar revenues, with the company taking in 135.82 billion Taiwanese dollars in Q3. HTC attributes it’s soft 4th quarter to a product cycle transition, as the handset maker is hard at work on new products and saw only a few new devices released in the quarter.

Things aren’t looking up for HTC in the immediate term, as HTC has announced its Q1 2012 projected revenue of 65 to 70 billion Taiwanese dollars, well below the near 90 billion analysts were expecting.

Still, HTC has made a name for themselves as a maker of high-quality Android devices, and have several new devices that should be announced at Mobile World Congress later this month in Barcelona. With all luck, HTC could be back to it’s money-raking ways come Q2.

HTC stock will take a hit after news that the company saw a significant downturn in revenues during the fourth quarter of 2011. While annual revenues were up overall (465.79 billion Taiwanese dollars in 2011 compared 278.76 billion in 2010), the surge seen for most of the year trailed off as HTC’s take for the final months of 2011 lagged at 101.42 billion Taiwanese dollars. The drop off follows four quarters of successive growth that saw revenues rise to 124.40 billion in Q2 and 135.82 billion in Q3. Despite the overall increase in revenues, profits for 2011 were down 11.88 percent.

WIth the poor end-of-year performance, HTC is forecasting unfavorable results heading into the new year. Revenues for Q1 predicted by independent analysts to be close to 90 billion Taiwanese dollars have now been dropped to 65-70 billion by HTC’s own financial department. The smartphone manufacturer hopes the downturn is only temporary and expects the announcement of new devices at Mobile World Congress to spark increased revenues though ever shrinking margins (tracking at 7.5 percent, a three-year low) may continue to dig into profits.

[HTC via The Verge, Engadget]

HTC on Monday reported earnings for the fourth quarter last year along with guidance for the first quarter that missed analysts’ estimates. Further highlighting the slump that began in October with the launch of Apple’s iPhone 4S, the Taiwan-based vendor posted fourth-quarter revenue of NT$101.42 billion, or approximately $3.5 billion USD, down 2.5% compared to the same quarter in 2010. Gross profit slid nearly 12% in the fourth quarter to NT$27.5 billion, and HTC’s total assets on hand at the end of the year slid more than 33% to NT$254.59 billion. In the first quarter of 2012, the vendor expects the rough patch to continue ahead of new product launches due later in the first half. HTC said first-quarter sales will likely fall between NT$65 billion and NT$70 billion while Wall Street expected guidance of approximately NT$85 billion.

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Continue reading Refresh Roundup: week of January 30, 2012

Refresh Roundup: week of January 30, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Dashwire closes up shop, all your data to get flushed on February 15th (update: Windows Mobile devices only) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Mobile Miscellany: week of January 30th, 2012

Mobile Miscellany: week of January 30th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• Non-US Samsung Galaxy S II
• Sprint Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch
• AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II
• T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S II
• Samsung Epic 4G (looks like this one disappeared shortly after due to some bugs)
• Motorola Cliq
• LG Optimus Black
• LG Optimus 2X
• LG Optimus 3D
• HTC Rezound
• HTC G2
• HTC MyTouch 4G

This article deals with a couple of advanced topics. If you’re unfamiliar with some

...

Official Android Police t-shirts are now on sale, with over 25 designs to call yours.

• [Updated] Koush Adds ClockworkMod Touch Recovery Support To HTC EVO 4G, EVO 3D, Desire, Desire HD, Sensation, Thunderbolt; Motorola Atrix 4G
• [Updated: Here Are The Winners!] Lightning Giveaway: Win 1 Of 20 Free ClockworkMod Touch Recovery Codes For ROM Manager
• [Update: Beta 1 Now Available] Touch-Enabled ClockworkMod Recovery Alpha Released For The Galaxy Nexus
• [Updated x2: Now In ROM Manager As Of 5.0.0.0] Download: ClockworkMod Touch Recovery Beta Now Available For Galaxy Nexus And Nexus S/S4G
• SFR Reveals Existence Of Android 4.0.5, Confirms ICS Update Roadmap For Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S, Galaxy SII And HTC Sensation In March 2012

ClockworkMod Touch Recoveries Now Out For All Flavors Of Samsung Galaxy S II, Epic 4G; Motorola Cliq; LG Optimus Black, 2X, 3D; HTC Rezound, G2, MT4G was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

The folks at Tucows, who were once known for their applications (free, shareware or otherwise) repository for desktop operating systems are looking to introduce a new venture that’s interesting, to say the least. With the help of Sprint they have launched Ting, a pay-as-you-go service that gives users extremely good value compared to other PAYG carriers.

One of the great things about Ting is how flexible it is. You don’t have to have text, data, or voice if you won’t want it. Some might just want data and text messaging, while others might just want voice and nothing else. Ting lets you do any combination of the three main services that you wish. That is reason enough to switch for a ton of people.

Ting has ridiculously low prices when it comes to voice and text. For $3 you could get 100 minutes of talk time if you don’t use voice much. $9 would get you $500, saving you $3 if you extrapolate from the cheapest plan. Similarly with text messages, you can get 100 of those for $3, 1000 for $5 and so on and so forth.

Data is a bit different, though. You can get anywhere from 100MB of data ($3) to 3GB ($60). Naturally it’s more expensive than text and voice but Tucows allows you to step onto Sprint’s 4G WiMax network with any capable 4G phone of theirs.

Without the extra $10 data charge and without needing to pay separately to use your device as a mobile broadband plan it does still come out to be a decent value. Take a look at their rate plans above.

The most interesting thing is their overage feature. If you go over any of your allotted minutes, texts or data you’ll simply be stepped up to the next tier on whichever feature you go over on. If you don’t use all of the allotted features for that tier you’ll be reimbursed for those unused featured. If you happen to be stepped up to XXL and go over, you’ll be charged normal overage rates as seen above.

Here’s a list of the Android devices you’ll be able to get (all prices are without contract as this is a PAYG carrier):

• Kyocera Zio ($105)
• LG Optimus S ($155)
• Samsung Transform ($245)
• Samsung Conquer 4G ($295)
• HTC Detail (AKA EVO Shift 4G, $395)
• Motorola Photon 4G ($545)

If any of this sounds interesting to you and you want to try out a new carrier, head to Ting’s site. It’s not clear whether or not your existing Sprint devices will be able to be activated for Ting but we imagine you won’t be able to without some hackery on your part. Wherever Sprint’s network extends is wherever Ting extends so you won’t have to worry about a lack of coverage (for 3G and voice, anyway). [Engadget]

"HTC takes customer data security very seriously. If there is a known breach of sensitive customer data, our priority is customer notification along with corrective actions. It is our policy, and industry standard procedure, to protect customers, which sometimes necessitates not increasing data security risks by disclosing minor breach issues where no malicious applications are detected. In those cases, premature disclosure of vulnerabilities could spur creation of malicious apps to take advantage of any vulnerability before it is fixed. For this specific WiFi bug issue, we worked closely with Google and the security researchers from the date of notification and throughout this process to ensure that the majority of affected HTC phones had already received the fix prior to the vulnerability being made public."

Update: We changed our original headline to make it clearer that HTC deliberately kept quiet to protect its customers. We're certainly not accusing HTC of any wrong-doing here.

HTC acknowledges long-running WiFi security flaw, says it kept it quiet to prevent exploits originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.