It's been a long and trying year since HTC last reported a quarterly profit, but in Q2 of 2014 the Taiwanese phone maker has finally returned to making rather than losing money. The unaudited financials for the past three months show a modest profit of NT$2.26 billion ($75 million) off the back of NT$65 billion ($2.17 billion) in overall revenue. That's actually less than HTC generated in sales in the second quarter last year, however the net number is 80 percent higher owing to a series of cost-cutting measures undertaken by the company.

The new flagship Android phone from HTC, the One (M8), has been generally recognized as the best-designed and most attractive new handset to come out this year, and its presence will surely have helped to steady the company's financial fortunes. Still, it doesn't appear to have been the runaway success that HTC needs to feel fully confident about its long-term prosperity. Goldman Sachs research quoted by The Wall Street Journal forecasts that this second quarter will be HTC's peak, as it has been for the past two years, indicating that without another big release in the fall, HTC will continue to hover around the break-even mark.