A new report suggests that Google is all set to buy HTC's
smartphone division which would be the search engine giant's second tech
company acquisition. Previously, Google acquired Motorola in the past and sold
the business to Lenovo for $2.9 billion. The report came out of Taiwan's
Commercial Times and it suggests the two companies are in the final stages of
negotiation.
Google is planning to only buy the smartphone business and
is not interested in investing in HTC's VR department. HTC does not plan to
sell the entire company and it seems like the acquisition is a “strategic
investment.” The report further adds that the deal will be completed by the end
of 2017.
The Taiwanese company has been looking to sell part of their
business earlier in the year and given that HTC and Google already work closely
for the Pixel devices, it seems like a smart move. This would enable Google to
compete directly with Samsung and Apple as they would now have their own
premium smartphone manufacturing division. HTC has been responsible for
manufacturing the Pixel devices and also the original Nexus phone.
HTC has been struggling to maintain revenues as the
smartphone is no longer one of the world's top smartphone manufacturers and
suffered their lowest revenue in 13 years. The company has not been able to
compete with other Chinese companies like Vivo, OPPO, Xiaomi and OnePlus and
are now looking to sell their smartphone business.
Commercial Times said HTC's poor financial position and
Google's desire to "perfect [the] integration of software, content,
hardware, network, cloud, [and] AI," is the driving force behind Google's
interest. The news outlet said Google may make a "strategic
investment" or "buy HTC's smartphone R&D team" which
suggests that the VR team would exist as its own.
