HTC CEO blasts internal bureaucracy

The chief executive of troubled Taiwanese mobile phone maker HTC has sent out a company-wide email, saying there is a need to "kill bureaucracy" to deal with a record drop in sales.

HTC CEO Peter Chou. Source: HTC

Peter Chou emailed employees and board members, complaining that "bureaucracy crept in without clear ownership. We agreed to do something but we either didn't do it or executed it loosely." 

News agency Bloomberg obtained a copy of the email from Chou, and it was confirmed to be authentic by an HTC spokesperson.

In the email, Chou accused HTC of having people "meeting and talking all the time without decision, strategic direction or sense of urgency."

Chou said HTC's competitors could leverage their scale and brand awareness as well as big marketing budgets, enabling them to do things HTC could not do. 

He urged the company not to allow small things to kill major goals and to build on its culture, committed employees, and customer relationships, to emerge from its current rut.

HTC began in 1997, producing personal digital assistants, but switched to making smartphones under its own brand in 2006, hitting record revenue growth in 2010 and 2011, before falling sharply this year.

The company held roughly 16 percent of the world's smartphone market and its shares reached a price of $41.56 before sliding to around $6.50 currently.

This represents a $28.8 billion drop in market capitalisation and the company has cut jobs and costs to as sales and profitability have declined.

The central bank governor of Taiwan, Perng Fai-nan, has urged the island nation's government to step in and assist HTC, which is facing withering competition from Apple and Samsung as well as being embroiled in patent infringement court cases.