HTC to focus on "hero" smartphones this year, release fewer models overall

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HTC Amaze 4G

In an interview with Mobile Today, HTC's head of operations in the UK, Phil Roberson, claimed that the company plans to release fewer smartphone models this year, and instead will focus on select "hero," or high-end models to turn around its flailing performance.

?We have to get back to focusing on what made us great ? amazing hardware and a great customer experience," said Roberson. "We ended 2011 with far more products than we started out with. We tried to do too much. So 2012 is about giving our customers something special. We need to make sure we do not go so far down the line that we segment our products by launching lots of different SKUs."

In recent times, HTC has become synonymous with pumping out iteration after iteration of new smartphone devices without much differentiation between them (one just has to look at the Sensation 4G and Amaze 4G released less than four months apart for T-Mobile last year or the Sensation, Sensation XE, and Sensation XL models released for other markets to see this). Focusing on fewer models will allow HTC to better utilize its marketing and should go far to lessen confusion among consumers.

In addition to focusing on fewer smartphone models, Roberson said that HTC will not spend as much resources on tablets, instead training its eye on capturing back lost smartphone market share. HTC won't be exiting the tablet market completely, but it won't be its priority either.

The move to release fewer models than previous years is something that Motorola intends on doing this year as well, as expressed by CEO Sanjay Jha during CES 2012. The fact that there are too many different models released too close together has been a point of contention in the Android smartphone market for many, so if both HTC and Motorola - prolific smartphone makers - scale back their product release cycles, they could alleviate some of those complaints. Now if only Samsung would get on board, we would be all set.