HTC has recently suffered a striking exodus among executives, but marketing head Benjamin Ho says the company plans to fill some of its many vacancies by the end of June. Yesterday, COO Matthew Costello left HTC; HTC Asia CEO Lennard Hoornik and chief product officer Kouji Kodera, among others, have also departed. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Ho said that they had left for various reasons, including opposition to changes meant to turn the struggling company around.
HTC says departing executives will be replaced by end of month
Part Of
How To Collapse: do slumping sales and an executive exodus spell doom for HTC?
see all updates
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
“You can’t have 100 percent of your staff agree with every action you have to take to improve the company,” said Ho. “HTC has to recover its business. We’ve had to make difficult decisions.” Costello’s role has already been taken over by Fred Liu of engineering and operations, while Hoornik and others have yet to be permanently replaced.
Despite receiving praise for its flagship phones, HTC has recently struggled to make inroads in the Android market, especially compared to competitor Samsung. The HTC One in particular was delayed because of supply chain problems, possibly caused by its failure to consistently sell previous devices, and the HTC First “Facebook phone” has been called “a disaster” for the company. But Ho says HTC has overcome at least one of these problems: the component shortages, he insists, are “completely solved.” In the coming year, Ho says HTC will place a premium on building its brand — possibly as a nod to Samsung, whose dominance has been cemented by a massive publicity blitz.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
