On March 1st, HTC started taking pre-orders for its Vive VR headset. In the first 10 minutes, 15,000 units were reserved. That worked out to about $12 million in orders. The device actually launched on April 5th, and has sold more than 140,000 units according to Chialin Chang. The executive happens to be president of HTC's smartphones and connected devices business, and he revealed this figure during an October 25th conference call between investors and HTC. A transcript of the call has just been released.

Chang added that every HTC Vive sold brings a profit to the company. A rumor that started making the rounds last month suggested that HTC had rung up 140,000 Vive units. During the call, Chang addressed the rumor by saying that the actual sales total is higher. How much higher, HTC won't say and that is a problem for developers trying to decide which VR device to hitch their wagon to.

"HTC still continued strong momentum for the HTC Vive across both consumer and enterprise market, while the virtual reality content store Viveport, launched in late September, aims to bring the non-divergence action of virtual reality experience to Vive owners."-Chialin Chang,president smartphones and connected devices, HTC

The Vive is priced at approximately $800. If each unit sold at that price, the beleaguered company grossed over $112 million selling the product. Back in January of this year, HTC co-founder and CEO Cher Wang said that the company was moving away from smartphones to focus on VR. On April 14th, HTC released its best flagship phone yet, the HTC 10. But HTC's failure to properly market the device led the phone to languish in the U.S. market and overseas. As a result, the company has continued to report red ink for each quarter, although it is losing money at a slower pace.