HTC to Give Up on Quantity and Try Quality

HTC’s disappointing fourth-quarter earnings seem to have inspired a sea change at the company — or at least given it cause to reconsider its strength-in-SKU-numbers handset strategy.

Rather than compulsively adding to the cluttered cavalcade of Titans, Sensations, Impressives, Trophys and ChaChas, HTC has decided to exercise a bit of restraint and streamline its scattershot product line.

Phil Roberson, executive director of HTC U.K. and Ireland, tells Mobile magazine that 2012 will see the handset maker rolling out a smaller number of quality devices, rather than flooding the market with an endless confusion of indistinguishable smartphones.

“2012 is about giving our customers something special,” Roberson said. “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. We have to get back to focusing on what made us great — amazing hardware and a great customer experience. We ended 2011 with far more products than we started out with. We tried to do too much.”

I’ll say. There are currently 51 phones featured on HTC’s Mobile Phone Finder.

51.

And that’s far too many — particularly when certain rivals are cleaning up with three. Time to exercise some restraint and focus on a smaller portfolio of killer hero devices.