INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
On September 17, HTC announced that cofounder Cher Wang would be stepping down as CEO
In her place, Yves Maitre stepped into the role of Chief Executive, after more than a decade at French telecom giant, Orange.
It a tough job
The move comes on the tail of five consecutive quarterly losses and major layoffs, including a quarter of the company staff, which were let
go in July of last year.
It a far fall for a company that comprised roughly 11 percent of global smartphone sales, some eight years ago
These days, HTC is routinely relegated to the &other& column when these figures are published.
All of this is not to say that the company
doesn''t have some interesting irons in the fire
With Vive, HTC has demonstrated its ability to offer a cutting edge VR platform, while Exodus has tapped into an interest in exploring the
use of blockchain technologies for mobile devices.
Of course, neither of these examples show any sign of displacing HTC once-booming mobile
And this January $1.1 billion sale of a significant portion of its hardware division to Google has left many wondering whether it has much
gas left in the mobile tank.
With Wang initially scheduled to appear on stage at Disrupt this week, the company ultimately opted to have
Maitre sit in on the panel instead
In preparation for the conversation, we sat down with the executive to discuss his new role and future of the struggling Taiwanese hardware
company.
5G, XR and the future of the HTC brand
