Three of the world's major smartphone manufacturers will likely fail to meet their sales target this year based on fresh reports that cite information from industry insiders. These include ASUS, HTC, and Acer — all are based in Taiwan.

ASUS Weak Sales

ASUS, maker of the Zenfone handsets, will only be able to ship 20 million units this year, five million short of its 2016 target.

According to Digitimes, this is largely attributed to the emergence of Chinese smartphones, which caused its lower-than-expected sales performance in China. This is reinforced by the fact that Huawei has beaten Samsung for the first time in terms of profitability in the third quarter of this year, although some observers blame the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco for the latter's profit decline.

ASUS is also facing grim projections next year as Chinese devices are expected to flood India, a market where the company is steadily gaining inroads.

ASUS also sustained weaker sales both in Europe and the United States but the report did not reveal specific reason behind the company's performance in these regions.

HTC's Continuing Struggle

HTC has already ceded its spot to ASUS as Taiwan's homegrown smartphone manufacturer in 2015. It has been struggling to reclaim its position since and the losing streak continues as the company is poised to end the year with around 12 million units sold. This is a remarkable decline from the 18 million figure that it was able to hit last year.

Like ASUS, Chinese smartphones are also the culprit for its dismal sales performance. Their popularity has further diminished HTC's market share, a trend that is, unfortunately, expected to continue next year.

Acer And Its Diminished Prospects

Of course, Acer is not really considered a major smartphone vendor. However, it managed to sell 10 million handsets in 2015. This year, that figure has been slashed by half. The company is only expected to finish the year with less than 5 million units shipped.

The shipment figures are, certainly, not yet officially confirmed. However, if they are true, it will be interesting to watch what these companies are going to do in order to stage a turnaround. The upcoming CES 2017 offers one of the opportunities to do this. This is the time when ASUS, HTC and Acer will try to gain competitive advantage with the launch of new products and innovations.

ASUS, for one, is already busy preparing for its Zennovation event, kicking off a day before CES officially starts.