A 60 percent plunge in HTC Corp.’s stock this year pushed its market value to below its cash on hand. That means investors were effectively saying the smartphone maker’s brand, factories and buildings were worthless.
HTC’s market price fell Monday to NT$47 billion ($1.5 billion), below the NT$47.2 billion cash it had at the end of June. A drop of as much as 9.8 percent in its stock before a late rally signaled investors put no value on the rest of the company.
“HTC’s cash is the only asset of value to shareholders,” said Calvin Huang, who has a NT$46.50 price target on the stock at Sinopac Financial Holdings Co. in Taipei. “Most of the other assets shouldn’t be considered in their valuation because there’s more write-offs to come and the brand has no value.”
Welp. My HTC One M8 is sobbing quietly. I say “quietly,” because you can’t actually hear anything on the phone when you use it to talk. It’s great for everything else. Except phone calls.
I was all in on the HTC One and the One M8, but the lackluster cameras and the uninspired M9 made me lose all interest. Sorry to see that they’ve fallen this far. I was hoping they could bounce back with their 2016 phone, but they may not make it that long.
The HTC One M7 was one of my favorite phones when it comes to personal ownership history. The camera coulda used some work, but it was a fab phone, even with Sense instead of stock Android.
I find the camera on the M8 to be adequate. It’s not, in specs, nearly as good as some, but for most uses it’s fine. In fact, I love everything about the phone–except the voice stuff. I cannot hear anything from the little ear hole. I need to get a Bluetooth earpiece I guess, but as I use the phone for talking about once a day, and usually with my wife, it’s not that big a deal. Except when “buy some bananas” gets to my ear as “we need some platypus steaks” or something.
