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Having manufactured what are undoubtedly some of the hottest handsets of 2010, HTC has admitted it underestimated demand and was caught out, leading to the stock shortages which have made obtaining handsets like the HTC EVO 4G and HTC Desire harder than finding a properly working iPhone 4 in the wild.
Speaking to UK site Mobile Today HTC UK & Ireland executive director John French said “we are catching up. We are still in a position where the demand keeps growing and like any good manufacturer, it takes time to build up capacity just to meet demand so we are doing that now by very heavily investing in new production capacity and we will catch up very, very soon.”
While French avoided answering just how much HTC will be spending on this capacity upgrade he also rubbished speculation that HTC was artificially limiting device availability to drive up consumer demand.
“There is absolutely no truth in the rumour. The demand for the product took our customers and therefore ourselves by surprise and the shortages were not on a particular product, so I can categorically say it was not a tactic.”
What is beyond dispute is that HTC really does need to get its manufacturing in order since, with no end in sight for the demand of HTC’s wares, it will be a long time before the firm can sit back and relax.
