HTC will intro half as many smartphones this year

HTC may have taken a bolder approach in the smartphone world with its new U Ultra and U Play, but it's decided to play it safe with its roadmap for the rest of the year. After today's launch event in Taipei, I caught up with President of Smartphone and Connected Devices Business, Chialin Chang, who confirmed that HTC will only be releasing six to seven smartphones this year. While that's a drastic cut from last year's eleven to twelve models, he claims this has so far allowed the company to focus on its smartphones' core features, in a bid to put up a better fight against other brands. In the case of the two newest phones, Chang sees machine learning as their main selling point. The exec described the so-called Sense Companion virtual assistant as a combination of Google's Awareness API, device information and third-party data.