Google has announced that it has signed a deal with HTC to buy part of its smartphone business for $1.1 billion. The search-engine giant is buying the HTC team, which was responsible for making Pixel smartphones.
Under this deal, Google will take the employees and resources that were used to create the Pixel smartphone series. The company will also a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property. However, this does not mean that HTC will stop making smartphones. The brand will continue to do so and it said that it will soon unveil a new flagship device at the end of this year. Further, HTC will also invest in making more virtual reality headsets like its Vive VR.
Through this deal, Google will finally get a strong hand in the hardware business. This is not the first time, Google is acquiring a smartphone company. In 2012, the company bought Motorola for $12billion dollars, however, after two years Google Motorola to Lenovo. However, the part acquisition from HTC will further help Google to get more control on the manufacturing site.
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HTC and Google partnership has been time tested. “In many ways, this agreement is a testament to the decade-long history of teamwork between HTC and Google. Together, we’ve achieved several mobile-industry firsts, including the first ever Android smartphone, the HTC Dream, also known as the T-Mobile G1 (I loved mine!); as well as the Nexus One in 2010, the Nexus 9 tablet in 2014, and the first Pixel smartphone just last year,” Rick Osterloh, Senior Vice President, Hardware at Google said in a statement.