Google said to be eyeing purchase of 'Pixel 2' manufacturer HTC's smartphone division to c...
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.
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.
Comments
LOL!
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?
Strip it of any patents so as to bolster Google's portfolio
sell off the remains
HTC will be dead within a year if Google buys it
or they just pay a bunch of money to have reviewers rate how great the camera is (even though they also say how it is not as good as ____).
Ya, that's a really sad number. Apple sells that many iPhones in what, a hour at launch? Android has been marketed as the CHEAP Phones. That was Google Nexus Line of phones. Cheap! There's no money in cheap phones. Apple is making over 90% of the Profits, Samesung makes most of the rest and that's from their S and Note series phones, not all the cheap to mid range phones they also sell. Do the math, there's very little money to split between everyone else and some have to be losing money.
So Google's answer is to copy the iPhone, both in looks and price. The Pixel looks like a iPhone clone and it's priced the same and look what happened. Few people wanted to pay iPhone prices for a iPhone Clone, when they could just get a iPhone.
I don't see how buying HTC is going to help them. HTC is in the tank. Google can't sell Pixel phones. How does buying HTC and still having HTC make them, though under Google change anything?
Rumor is they're now going to make AirPod clones. I can't wait for the fandroid excuses on that. How it's not copying and that they aren't ugly. I'm pretty sure they're not going to work anywhere like Apple's but the same old way all the other completely wireless headphones work which is not as good.
Google see's all this money coming in for Apple and making most of the profits and think they can get some of that. Still just another Android phone in a flood of cheap Android phones. They've been trying to be more like Apple, but it still hasn't paid off for them.
And no one is reporting Google is cloning Airpods. Don't mistake building a Google-assistant enabled headset as copying anything Apple did with Airpods. From limited reports so far they are very different products with very different capabilities.