In an interview with Bloomberg Technology, newly-appointed HTC Ceo Yves Maitre spoke about the competition in the VR market between Oculus and HTC. He also spoke about the VR market at large and how it has affected HTC’s performance and stock price.
Maitre began by noting that, at the time of recording, the embargo on HTC’s newest VR headset, the Vive Cosmos, had broken a few hours prior. He noted that, “critics are very, very positive. We are more than happy, and we will continue to move forward towards our [company] strategy, which is … 5G and XR reality.”
Contrary to Maitre’s comments on the critics’ response, we had mixed feelings about HTC’s newest headset. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out our review of the Vive Cosmos.
This prompted Bloomberg to question Maitre about the company’s low stock prices amid their pivot from smartphones to headsets, along with 5G technology. “Clearly the VR market is not going at the speed we were expecting, but we continue to invest towards this direction,” responded Maitre. He indicated that a company can go through peaks and troughs, especially during periods of new investment and research. However, he remains confident that the company is “climbing the mountain” to the next peak.
On the topic of competition, Bloomberg asked Maitre how HTC plans to beat Oculus in the VR market. “I’m not sure that the target is to beat Oculus,” he said. “The market is very large. We are competing with Oculus, [but] Oculus is its own segment which is purely gamer and social network. [sic] I think the market is very large, when you look at the B2B [business to business] for example, [there] is also a lot of opportunity. I think everything is moving forward and the market is, again, very large.”
Do you think HTC will find success with Vive Cosmos? Let us know in the comments below!
