HTC Smartphone President Chialin Chang Resigns

HTC’s president for smartphone and connected devices business Chialin Chang has resigned from his post. Chang also previously served as HTC’s CFO and was also the company’s head of global sales between 2013 and 2017.

“We can confirm Chialin Chang has resigned from his position as President of the Smartphone and Connected Devices Business at HTC. We thank him for his dedication to the Company for the last six years and wish him well in his future endeavors” — HTC

Chang’s resignation is effective today, Feb. 14, while HTC hasn’t announced a replacement yet. According to HTC, Chang resigned due to his “personal career plan.” Phone Arena pointed out that HTC’s stock price has continued to fall from a high of 1,300 NT ($44.56 USD) on April 29, 2011 to its current price of 59.90 NT ($2.03 USD)

Last month, Google bought part of HTC’s smartphone division for $1.1 billion. The deal also granted Google permission to use some of HTC’s patents. Google has been serious about making its own hardware with its Pixel smartphones and other devices, while HTC’s efforts in the smartphone market have continued to dwindle despite releasing formidable handsets.

The HTC U11, the company’s Android flagship last year, received mostly positive reviews from critics but still failed to capture consumers’ attention. Most recently, the company launched the HTC U11+ in India earlier this month and it featured a 6-inch 18:9 aspect ratio display. Despite Chang resigning from his post at HTC, the company is still in the smartphone making business.

The company’s latest flagship smartphone, the HTC U12, recently made an appearance during a 5G event in Taiwan. The U12 hasn’t been officially announced yet, and the company hasn’t given any information on a release date.

The HTC U12 is said to arrive with a 6-inch 1,440 x 2,880 Super LCD6 display and will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor with 6GB of RAM. The handset is also expected to arrive with the Qualcomm X20 LTE modem, which will enable the device to have download speeds of up to 1.2Gbps. The phone doesn’t feature 5G, but uses a combination of gigabit LTE and LAA.

Sources say that the HTC U12 won’t be announced during Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018 in Barcelona, Spain, according to The Verge. Instead, the upcoming Android flagship phone will be announced sometime after MWC 2018.