14 DAY TRIAL // The tide of change is swiping over HTC, as today we’ve found out that the company’s co-founder and CEO Peter Chou is stepping down from his position, giving the reins to co-founder and chairwoman Cher Wang.
Speaking to Bloomberg in an interview, Wang, 56, explained that when the position became available, she suggested that the job go to her. As she puts it herself, she is familiar with the company, knows the people and has the vision to push HTC even further.
Wang will have to keep HTC afloat
But Wang has a tough road ahead of herself, as the Taiwanese company has been experiencing declining sales for the last three years. Even the partnership it entered with Google to produce the Nexus 9 tablet didn’t seem to help that much.
Now, HTC has rolled out the One M9 flagship, for which it has high hopes. However, the smartphone doesn’t bring anything too disruptive in terms of features or design and follows the line of last year’s One M8.
Under Peter Chou’s reign, HTC managed to rise to the top of the US smartphone market, while fighting with Arch-rival Apple in court rooms across America in patent infringement lawsuits. Chou also presided over the sale of Beats Electronic to the latter company.
While Chou was there when HTC experienced its years of glory, he was also in charge when the company’s business started going down the drain and nobody seemed to be able to stop the trend.
HTC used to be a major Android player
As Jeff Pu, who rates stock sell at Yuanta Financial Holding, has said, Chou didn't have what it was required to keep HTC from sinking, but Cher Wang stepping in won’t make such a big difference either.
He also points out an interesting detail: her appointment might signify that HTC couldn’t manage to bring in a leader from the outside with a fresh vision.
Chou won’t be leaving the company he helped build, but will be given a new role as head of the HTC Future Development Lab.
HTC played a major role in the development of the mobile Android world as we know it today. Former CEO Peter Chou encouraged Android founder Andy Rubin to push the development of a smartphone platform that later got acquired by Google.
In 2008, HTC was actually the first device maker to offer a device running the Android mobile OS, called the HTC Dream. The company really managed to write history.