Google’s £810m bet on smartphones

GOOGLE has upped the stakes in the war for smartphone supremacy with an £810m deal that will see it poach 2,000 staff from struggling electronics firm HTC.

Its agreement with the Taiwanese company will mean the division that developed its Pixel smartphone will be brought in-house, with the Silicon Valley giant acquiring a licence for HTC’s intellectual property.

It is the second bid by Google to move into phone hardware – after an ill-fated purchase of Motorola Mobility in 2012 – and sets it up for a more direct challenge to Apple and Samsung.

Apple has just unveiled its next wave of iPhones and Samsung has launched a new Galaxy phone, while Google reveals the second generation of its own products — two Pixel phones and a Chromebook computer — next month.

Under the agreement, Google has not acquired any manufacturing capabilities.