The next quarter will be tough going for Taiwan’s HTC as it tries to recover from its first big fall in profits in two years.

HTC reported revenues of NT$101,42bn for the fourth quarter, but the company projects revenues of up to 36% less in the first quarter, from NT$65bn to NT$70bn (US$2,20bn-$2,37bn).

HTC previously announced that its profits fell in the fourth quarter, so this news is basically the other shoe that we’ve been waiting to see drop.

The company says it’s waiting for new models to turn its fortunes, and that the downturn will only be a short-lived problem, but the next quarter is still going to be a major issue. The quarterly projection is far off from the $3,04bn analysts were expecting, Reuters reports.

“Our weakness in first-quarter guidance also comes from facing competition in the US from iPhone and Samsung,” said HTC chief financial officer Winston Yung in a conference call today. “LTE handsets also didn’t meet our expectations.”

Indeed, HTC is now facing competition from all corners, and the only way it can survive is by reshaping its smartphone strategy. The company has already said that it instead of releasing a ton of phones this year, it’s going to focus on a smaller number of high-quality “hero” devices. Such a strategy will help consumers better differentiate HTC’s new devices, but HTC will also need to work double-time to make sure it can outdo Samsung and Apple. — Devindra Hardawar, VentureBeat