Google inks $1.1 billion deal with Pixel supplier HTC
Google and HTC announced a $1.1 billion deal that lets Google hire some of the Taiwanese smartphone maker’s employees — about 2,000 or so engineers — and inks a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property, strengthening the search engine giant’s hardware bench.
In a blog post Thursday, Goo- gle senior vice president Rick Osterloh said the deal would help Google with its hardware products five to 20 years in the future. Last year, Google introduced its first Made by Google products, including Pixel smartphones and Google Home. It will unveil its second generation of products Oct. 4.
Google and HTC have had chummy relations before. HTC, which delivered hardware for Google Pixel phones last year, is expected to make at least one of the new Pixels likely to be announced Oct. 4. (LG out of Korea
could produce another.) Some of the HTC staff slated for Google are already working on Pixels, the companies said.
HTC said it’s not getting out of smartphones altogether. It plans to launch a new phone. It also said it would expand the “ecosystem” around its virtual-reality headset Vive.
Google Pixel was lauded by critics, but it hasn’t been a huge sales hit. During the most recent quarter, Google Pixel accounted for only 0.2% of global smartphone shipments, according to Strategy Analytics.
HTC once was a dominant player in the global smartphone market, peaking at nearly 11% in the third quarter of 2011, but held just 0.5% in the quarter that ended June 30, says Neil Mawston, executive director of Londonbased research firm Strategy Analytics.
Google has gone this route before, and not successfully, having purchased Motorola Mobility for about $12.5 billion in 2012 before selling it off to Lenovo for a fraction of the price only a couple of years later. Google did hold on to patents.
The deal could help Google avoid some of the Pixel production bottlenecks it hit last year.