Successful companies know how to build momentum. They inject interest into the market and motivate us to buy product that is available on the shelves. Mis-timing a launch is an expensive business, because you will have shot your powder too early and have no ‘bang' left when the product finally hits town. KitGuru has been hearing some worrying things from the phone channel.

HTC is preparing to cut more than £30 off the retail price of a phone that has not launched yet.

It has been for review, but there is no serious stock in sight.

The CEO is preparing to deplete his company's savings by around $145 million before the launch of the HTC One Mini – just to prevent the share price tumbling drastically. How?  Basically by buying a massive number of shares in HTC.

Why the panic?

Across the globe, retailers have been placing orders with distributors who, in turn, have been placing orders with HTC.

Now, it appears, none of these will be satisfied before October.

With the launch of Apple's iPhone 5s scheduled for 11th September, that's a huge problem for HTC.

KitGuru says: We predicted 18 months ago that HTC was going to run into some serious issues and, in all likelihood, could go back to the point where the majority of its sales/production was done on behalf of 3rd parties. We like the company and hope it can carry on independently, but Apple and Samsung are serious competition.

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