The dark satanic rumour mill suggests that the outfit has only sold 4.75 million units of its new flagship smartphone since it the model launched in March.

According to the Chinese-language China Business Journal report this is a fall of 43.75 per cent as compared to shipments of the HTC One M8 during its initial three months.

HTC's market value has also declined to around $2 billion recently compared to its all-time high of 33.8 billion a few years ago, the paper added.

The journal quoted China-based iiMedia Research as saying the price of the M8 was too high as in that $258 are silly enough to think that an iPhone represents quality.

It is looking increasingly less likely that HTC will make any breakthrough in China market as the local smartphone vendors engaged in a round of price wars which are making HTC's position impossible .