HTC slashes sales forecast and rethinks S3 buy

Smartphone vendor expects no growth this quarter as it loses patent battle with Apple

HTC sent a shudder through the market last night by slashing its Q4 year-on-year growth forecast from between 20 and 30 per cent to zero.

Citing the global downturn and "market competition", the Taiwanese smartphone ace said the assumptions in the financial forecast it provided earlier were no longer valid.

Further bad news for shareholders was to come, as the vendor simultaneously announced that it was "re-evaluating" its acquisition of S3 Graphics after losing a patent dispute with Apple.

HTC said it was "disappointed" at the outcome of the recent ITC ruling stating that Apple did not infringe S3's patents, something it had not banked on when it unveiled the $300m (£193.5m) acquisition in July.

"HTC will work closely in good faith with [S3 owners] VIA Technologies and WTI Investment International to conduct holistic re-evaluation of the S3 Graphics acquisition," it said.