Ongoing supply chain issues take the blame
It’s been a long time since HTC’s last flagship entry. The company was among the biggest names in Android phones just a few years back, but we haven’t seen a proper flagship since 2018, with the latest one being the HTC U12+ (and then the HTC Exodus 1 blockchain phone, but we don’t talk about that one). Recently we’ve been hearing about a possible comeback to the flagship space, with a new metaverse-focused device on track for release sometime this year. Now some new comments from HTC make it sound like we might be waiting just a bit longer.
HTC Taiwan has been responding to comments on Facebook inquiring about its upcoming lineup (via WinFuture), and apparently the company’s initial plans are suffering some setbacks. As for a reason, supposedly ongoing pandemic supply chain issues are to blame. While the comment we’re looking at here doesn’t make direct reference to that metaverse flagship, its broader focus on HTC’s entire upcoming lineup (probably including some more forgettable lower-end models) suggests this phone is among the affected.
We still don’t have any real details yet about how this phone will look or function, but we should probably expect a higher-end price tag and a lot of AR features once it’s out. While HTC hasn’t dropped out of the smartphone market completely, its strategy through the past few years has seen the company release obscure midrange phones that mostly go on sale in Taiwan. The company might hope that this metaverse phone could help change the course of things (maybe leveraging that famous Vive branding), but we’ve got a lot to find out first before we have any real sense of whether this could be a bold new direction, or just another flop.
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