New HTC flagship to be called the HTC O2, SD820 inside

There have been worrying signs for HTC regarding the sales of their current flagship, the HTC One M9 – mainly, they’re not selling a lot of it. There’s just not enough interest generated for the flagship phone that they released early in the year, and that’s cause for concern financially for the Taiwan-based outfit. This is why rumors of a new, redesigned flagship from HTC came out, possibly to be announced this October, and now they say it will be named the HTC O2.

After the highly profitable year HTC had while selling the warmly received HTC One M8, the company had to announce to stockholders that the 2nd quarter of the 2015 fiscal showed an alarming loss. This means that the sales generated by the HTC One M9 was not enough to drive profit. This is where HTC CEO Cher Wang reportedly announced to the shareholders that a new flagship will be released within the year, and it will be called the HTC O2.

It will reportedly contain Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 820 chipset, made from Samsung’s 14nm FinFET process. It will ostensibly bring better performance – no overheating worries – and a longer battery life for the device. It is also rumored the HTC will keep to the all metal design they have taken with the HTC One, so we wonder what could be new about the phone apart from the name and the internals.

Rumors like this will have to be taken with fistfuls of salt, as we can’t really confirm if the panic at HTC has grown to such proportions that a new flagship phone is required. We think that the phone, if true, could be something that we will see by first quarter of 2016, but then that’s the time for HTC’s flagship reset anyways. So until then, don’t expect anything out of the blue coming from HTC homebase in Taiwan.

VIA: Phone Arena