Its latest research note showed how Morgan Stanley maintained an underweight rating on HTC and anticipated the Taiwanese firm's shipments to increase by 55% beginning quarter one to reach total units of 10 million in the period of April to June.
The note also cited the strong sell-in distributors' strength on HTC's One Series. Jasmine Lu, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, said that even if they think that HTC One X outperform the Samsung Galaxy S3 in several cases, limited differentiation in its hardware shows a shorter gap in technology among the two names.
But, Lu said that it will be hard for HTC to battle with Samsung when it comes to marketing dollar, operator and distribution coverage particularly in emerging markets such as the Middle East, Europe and Africa. Nevertheless, it's the aggressive marketing campaign of Samsung as well as additions to its software and user interface that improve the experience of the user and wider distribution must strengthen its rank in the segment of high end smartphones, Lu added.
Samsung recently unveiled its Galaxy S3 smartphone in London. The handset consists of a screen display of 4.8 inches, a camera of 8 megapixels, a four core processor and the Android ICS OS. According to Samsung, the Galaxy S3 will be on sale beginning the 29th of May in 145 nations via 296 operators.
Its 3G versions will be first available in Europe. Other countries such as Japan, North America and South Korea can expect the Galaxy S3's LTE version by the summer season. Robert Cheng, Bank of America Merrill Lynch's head, said that several investors have high expectations of Samsung's recent launch.
But, it is a relief to HTC that the Galaxy S3's specifications closely resemble that of the HTC One Series, he added. Nevertheless, Merrill Lynch still has a neutral view of HTC despite of strong competition and launch of the new iPhone in the second part of the year which may possibly affect the Taiwanese company the most versus the products of other brands said Cheng.
