Cher Wang, chairperson, co-founder and CEO of HTC, speaks at a keynote on the second day of the Mobile World Congress 2023.
Joan Cros | Nurphoto | Nurphoto via Getty Images
BARCELONA — The boss of consumer electronics firm HTC thinks Apple is going to launch its own mixed reality headset, but she’s not worried about the competition.
Speaking with CNBC at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, HTC CEO and co-founder Cher Wang said the Cupertino tech giant was likely to launch a mixed reality, or XR, product “very soon” — potentially as soon as this year. XR refers to technologies that blend the physical and digital worlds.
“I think the earliest [release date] may be middle or later this year,” Wang said.
The company will likely prioritize such a device over augmented reality glasses, she added.
Apple did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
Apple often holds off on getting into a particular product trend or feature until long after other firms. For instance, the iPhone didn’t get a camera with two lenses until 2017, years after HTC introduced a dual camera with its HTC One M8 handset in 2014.
“Apple is always more cautious. I think the market is now big enough [that] they probably will enter,” Wang said.
But when Apple does eventually make its way into a new product category, it tends to “redefine the way that everyone thinks about an opportunity,” according to Leo Gebbie, principal analyst for connected devices at CCS Insight.
Neil Shah, research vice president of Counterpoint Research, told CNBC: “XR is the newest form of how we can interact differently with the world and can change the paradigm of personal computing.”
“Apple and the entire industry realizes the potential and hence want to enter and eventually lead this segment,” he added.
XR competition is fierce
Apple wouldn’t be the only company getting in on the XR game. In October, Meta launched its $1,500 Quest Pro device, which lets users interact with virtual objects that appear in a full-color view of the world around them.
Earlier this week, a Samsung executive said that the South Korean electronics giant is “working out” its mixed reality strategy. Microsoft has its own mixed reality headset, called HoloLens. On Monday, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi took the wraps off of a prototype set of augmented reality glasses.
That will mean more competition for HTC. In the second quarter of 2022, the company shipped over 100,000 XR devices, according to data from Counterpoint Research, up by 158% from 40,000 shipments in the same period a year prior. But its market share remains relatively small.
If anything, Wang thinks that moves from Apple, Meta, Samsung and others in the space will boost the overall adoption of mixed reality devices, which she sees as a boon to HTC’s business.
“It’s really proven that our direction is correct,” she said. “Competition is always good.”
Once a major player in the smartphone market, HTC has staked its future on the merging of virtual and physical worlds. In January, the company launched its Vive XR Elite device, a lightweight headset focused on gaming, fitness and productivity, at a $1,099 price point.
HTC sold a chunk of its smartphone business to Google in 2018 for $1.1 billion.
Betting on the ‘metaverse’
The bet long term is that these devices will be how we interact with a mass-scale virtual world known as the “metaverse.” HTC has its own so-called metaverse, named HTC Viverse, and the company talked up its ambitions in this area at the show this week.
“The metaverse is kind of growing in a state where so many social media companies and walled garden companies are trying to build it out themselves,” Shen Ye, HTC’s global head of product, told CNBC. “Our goal is to make sure it’s as open and interconnected as possible.”
Buzz around the metaverse has died down lately, as the initial hype surrounding Meta’s involvement has been wearing off. Worldwide shipments of VR headsets as well as augmented reality devices sales sank over 12% last year, according to IDC data.
Companies have instead steered toward artificial intelligence, the new in-vogue tech topic that has been catapulted to the top of industry insiders’ favorite trends by ChatGPT, a popular AI chatbot. At MWC, South Korean telecoms firm SKTelecom had a big sign that read “AI METAVERSE.”
Donning one of HTC’s XR devices, users can immerse themselves in virtual spaces or interact with 3D objects in the physical space surrounding them.
In one experience shown off at MWC, people were invited to try out their boxing skills. A grid of nine black circles appears, and you were scored on how quickly you could punch them as they lit up red one after the other in a random order.
Beyond the consumer space, HTC sees its technology offering applications in more commercial and industrial settings. The company is working with the United States Air Force and police departments to carry out virtual training experiences, Wang said.
Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said Thursday that he’s moving out of the “bomb shelter” with Nvidia and into a position of safety, expecting that the chipmaker is positioned to withstand President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs.
“The growth and the demand for GPUs is off the charts,” he told CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report,” referring to Nvidia’s graphics processing units that are powering the artificial intelligence boom. He said investors just need to listen to commentary from OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk.
President Trump announced an expansive and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy in a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The plan established a 10% baseline tariff, though many countries like China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to steeper rates. The announcement sent stocks tumbling on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 5%, headed for its worst day since 2022.
The big reason Nvidia may be better positioned to withstand Trump’s tariff hikes is because semiconductors are on the list of exceptions, which Gerstner called a “wise exception” due to the importance of AI.
Nvidia’s business has exploded since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, and annual revenue has more than doubled in each of the past two fiscal years. After a massive rally, Nvidia’s stock price has dropped by more than 20% this year and was down almost 7% on Thursday.
Gerstner is concerned about the potential of a recession due to the tariffs, but is relatively bullish on Nvidia, and said the “negative impact from tariffs will be much less than in other areas.”
He said it’s key for the U.S. to stay competitive in AI. And while the company’s chips are designed domestically, they’re manufactured in Taiwan “because they can’t be fabricated in the U.S.” Higher tariffs would punish companies like Meta and Microsoft, he said.
“We’re in a global race in AI,” Gerstner said. “We can’t hamper our ability to win that race.”
YouTube on Thursday announced new video creation tools for Shorts, its short-form video feed that competes against TikTok.
The features come at a time when TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is at risk of an effective ban in the U.S. if it’s not sold to an American owner by April 5.
Among the new tools is an updated video editor that allows creators to make precise adjustments and edits, a feature that automatically syncs video cuts to the beat of a song and AI stickers.
The creator tools will become available later this spring, said YouTube, which is owned by Google.
Along with the new features, YouTube last week said it was changing the way view counts are tabulated on Shorts. Under the new guidelines, Shorts views will count the number of times the video is played or replayed with no minimum watch time requirement.
Previously, views were only counted if a video was played for a certain number of seconds. This new tabulation method is similar to how views are counted on TikTok and Meta’s Reels, and will likely inflate view counts.
“We got this feedback from creators that this is what they wanted. It’s a way for them to better understand when their Shorts have been seen,” YouTube Chief Product Officer Johanna Voolich said in a YouTube video. “It’s useful for creators who post across multiple platforms.”
CEO of Meta and Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attend the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th U.S. president in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Via Reuters
Technology stocks plummeted Thursday after President Donald Trump’s new tariff policies sparked widespread market panic.
Apple led the declines among the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group, dropping nearly 9%. The iPhone maker makes its devices in China and other Asian countries. The stock is on pace for its steepest drop since 2020.
Other megacaps also felt the pressure. Meta Platforms and Amazon fell more than 7% each, while Nvidia and Tesla slumped more than 5%. Nvidia builds its new chips in Taiwan and relies on Mexico for assembling its artificial intelligence systems. Microsoft and Alphabet both fell about 2%.
The drop in technology stocks came amid a broader market selloff spurred by fears of a global trade war after Trump unveiled a blanket 10% tariff on all imported goods and a range of higher duties targeting specific countries after the bell Wednesday. He said the new tariffs would be a “declaration of economic independence” for the U.S.
Companies and countries worldwide have already begun responding to the wide-sweeping policy, which included a 34% tariff on China stacked on a previous 20% tax, a 46% duty on Vietnam and a 20% levy on imports from the European Union.
China’s Ministry of Commerce urged the U.S. to “immediately cancel” the unilateral tariff measures and said it would take “resolute counter-measures.”
The tariffs come on the heels of a rough quarter for the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the worst period for the index since 2022. Stocks across the board have come under pressure over concerns of a weakening U.S. economy. The Nasdaq Composite dropped nearly 5% on Thursday, bringing its year-to-date loss to 13%.
Trump applauded some megacap technology companies for investing money into the U.S. during his speech, calling attention to Apple’s plan to spend $500 billion over the next four years.