Overall sales at HTC are expected to remain stagnant in 2017 as its smartphone shipments are likely to remain slow, while it is having difficulty significantly ramping up shipments of the HTC Vive, according to industry sources.

To heat up its smartphone shipments, HTC teamed up with US-based telecom operator Sprint to launch the HTC Bolt in the US recently, and has also begun to ship the HTC 10 evo, a variant of the HTC Bolt, to other markets.

However, HTC has seen its the sales momentum for high-end models continue to ebb due to its dwindling brand image, indicated the sources, adding that shipments of Google's Pixel phones are unlikely to ramp up HTC's revenues significantly as the Pixel is produced on an OEM basis.

Although HTC has initiated a promotional campaign offering a discount of US$100 for the HTC Vive during the year-end holiday season in order to ramp up sales, there will be no explosive growth for the Vive due to restricted market conditions, including a lack of killer applications and relatively high costs of high-performance PCs, commented the sources.

Shipments of the HTC Vive are expected to reach over 400,000 units in 2016, said the sources, citing data from market research firms.

Looking forward into 2017, shipments of the HTC Vive are likely to grow moderately to over 600,000 units due to a shortage of key components, indicated the sources.