To nobody’s surprise, the Samsung Galaxy S4 has turned out to be a big hit for the Korean electronics company. Samsung says it’s now shipped 10 million units of the 5 inch handset around the world since it launched on April 27th.
While rival HTC’s latest flagship phone isn’t moving quite as quickly, an HTC official tells the Wall Street Journal that the company has shipped about 5 million units, and that demand for the HTC One is still higher than supply.
That’s good news for HTC, which has been struggling in the Android smartphone space dominated by Samsung for a while. But whether it’s enough to pull the company out of a slump remains to be seen. Reports suggest that HTC has lost a lot of key employees recently.
That said, the HTC One has been widely praised by reviewers. While it doesn’t have some of the features that make the Galaxy S4 special (such as a removable battery, microSD card slot, or the ability to control your phone by waving your hands over it or looking at it), the One does feature excellent build quality, sleek design, an excellent display, and a speedy processor.
But HTC still faces some challenges in other areas. While the HTC One seems to be doing quite well in the market, the company has reportedly canceled plans to launch the HTC First “Facebook Phone” in the UK following poor reception in the US.
I don’t understand this “build quality” hype on the htc one. In my opinion, if you build a phone with a non-removable batter in plastic or titanium and you have to practically dynamite to replace it (let alone find a place to get it serviced), the “build quality” just went out the window.