HTC shares tumble after weak results

Taiwan's smartphone maker HTC saw its shares fall 10%, the daily trading limit, in the wake of poor earnings and a weak outlook.

The sharp drop came one day after the struggling smartphone maker reported a record quarterly loss.

For the three months to June, losses hit 8bn Taiwanese dollars (£163m; $253m) from Tw$2.26bn a year earlier.

A pioneer of early Android smartphones, HTC is struggling with competition from Apple, Samsung and Chinese rivals.

The company also said the outlook was weak for the next quarter with revenues expected to fall.

Friday's shares tumble saw the company stocks fall by 10%, which is the maximum allowed on one day. Shares fell to their lowest since February 2005.

Job cuts

The disappointing results were triggered by "weaker than expected demand at the high end along with weak sales in China", the firm said in a statement.

The company also said it would cut jobs and discontinue some of its models to focus more on high-end devices.

"HTC has begun to implement company-wide efficiency measures to reduce operating costs across the organisation and ensure resources are appropriately allocated to future growth," the statement said.

The smartphone maker has been losing market share over the past years, hit by strong competition at the top-end of the market from the likes of Apple and Samsung, while cheaper Chinese rivals have affected HTC's low-cost offerings.