Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp said on Monday it sees slightly lower revenue and shipments in the fourth quarter than in the third, citing uncertainties from new models going to be launched by the company and competitors, as well as global economic invisibility.

The world's No.5 smartphone maker said it was more optimistic about LTE 4G phones to be launched in the first quarter when meaningful shipment would be seen, and stressed that it had no plans to launch phones pricing lower than $100 as the media reported.

We hope to capture the opportunities from customers migrating from feature phones to smartphones with our quality; that's something we won't compromise, we cannot launch low-end products, HTC CFO Winston Yung told a telephone conference.

Yung said HTC's smartphones for the mass market are currently priced between $200-250.

Analysts, however, said many of HTC's high-end phones are actually competing against each other.

They have many products really targeting a similar audience and this is never a good thing, said Gartner's analyst Carolina Milanesi.

Although I believe HTC is still the vendor that has made more progress in building a company experience around Android, I think they need to look at their portfolio very carefully and rationalize it.

In a statement, the company said that it expects its fourth-quarter revenue at T$125-135 billion, down from T$135.8 billion in the third quarter, and shipments at 12-13 million units, compared with 13.2 million units in the third quarter.

HTC also said it expects gross margin and operating margin at around 28 percent and 14.5 percent, respectively, the same level as in the third quarter.

The company has seen strong sales growth in the last quarter, with China jumping ninefold compared with the same period a year earlier. HTC owned 1,300 channels in China by the end of the third quarter and targets to expand to 2,000 by the end of this year.

The smartphone maker said in early October its net profit rose 68 percent in the third quarter, much slower than in previous quarters but within expectations, as customer demand for the hi-tech gadgets stayed strong even in the face of a global economic slowdown.

(Additional reporting by Tarmo Virki in Helsinki; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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