Mike Wuerthele
Reports are emerging from China that a deal that would result in Google taking a controlling interest in — or buying out completely — HTC's struggling smartphone business.
The Chinese-language Commerical Times was first to note the negotiations. The deal does not appear to be for the entirety of HTC. HTC's Vive division is a discrete entity, insulated from the smartphone division.
Earlier on Thursday, HTC posted its lowest revenue in over a decade. The company reported $99.7 million in earnings, a 51.5 percent drop as compared to July, and a decrease of 54.3 percent when compared to the year-ago month.
HTC's earnings for June and July were buoyed by the release of the U11 flagship phone — but the financial effect of the release appears to have only lasted for two months.
The deal seems remarkably similar on the surface to Google's $12.5 billion buy of Motorola that finalized in 2012, before it sold off the patent-stripped carcass to Lenovo for $2.91 billion in 2014.
Google and HTC are not strangers to each other. Google's rumored "Pixel 2" line of phones that will go head-to-head with Apple's fall releases are reportedly under construction by HTC now, and the Pixel and Pixel XL devices were manufactured by the company as well.
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38 Comments
This sounds familiar...can’t quite place it...
I'm sure this will be another massive acquisition that will be money well spent.
LOL!
Hmmmmmm.... Second time's a charm?
I can't decide if this is a good move or a last desperate thow of the dice by Google to keep relevant in the Smartphone market.
I looked at a Pixel and found that it was the same price as the iPhone 7.
I wonder how many they actually sold at that price?