Taiwan's HTC reports 79 percent drop

Taiwan smartphone maker HTC Corp. on Friday reported a 79 percent drop in third quarter profit as intensifying competition from Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. hurt sales.

HTC said its profit totaled 3.9 billion New Taiwan dollars ($99 million) on revenue of NT$70 billion in the three months through September. It was HTC's fourth consecutive fall in quarterly profit.

The company predicts revenue to drop to NT$60 billion in the fourth quarter despite traditional pre-Christmas buying and its introduction of two new models running on Microsoft's Windows 8 software.

HTC became the first maker of smartphones based on Google's Android software in 2008 and its sales surged. It entered a sharp decline in the second half of 2011.