Amid Declining Sales and Stock, HTC COO Steps Down

HTC has hit a rough patch, with a massive income drop brought about by delays and marketing failures. It’s already lost four senior executives in half as many years, and now it’s losing another.

Matthew Costello, Chief Operating Officer of HTC, has decided to step down from his position. While he hasn’t been at the smartphone company for more than three years, it seemed like the proper time to abandon a sinking ship. For the moment, Fred Liu, the company’s president of engineering and operations, will assume his responsibilities.

Things haven’t been going too well for HTC lately. After delays in its new handsets, difficulty properly marketing its devices, and more and more management members jumping ship, its net income is at an all-time low. Its share of the global smartphone market is hanging somewhere around 4 percent, leaving it far outclassed by its competitors.

Yet the company remains optimistic, even as it goes into emergency mode. It recognizes that it failed in regards to its products, especially due to a major lag in shipments of its latest models, and is attempting to turn things around. The company hopes that its HTC One handset will help re-establish a global brand and bring in revenue to turn things around, while it will also form a new quality assurance division to make sure the products are reliable and powerful.

Costello isn’t the only executive to have stepped down from a role at HTC, which has also lost its finance, design, and marketing chiefs. He will remain on as an executive adviser, which presents him with a position to continue influencing the company and attempting to turn things around, so he has not abandoned it entirely.

Can HTC regain its lost ground and pride? At this point, it may not be easy, but there’s always a chance. What the company needs to do is get its game back together and ensure that every device is top-quality, with access to all the apps and features that other phones boast, without overheating and connection difficulties. It will not be easy, but it’s not impossible either.