It was rumoured for a while that Google, the tech giant from Silicon Valley would buy HTC, the well known Taiwanese brand that has given us iconic Android phones in the past. Well today they made that official, but it is not what we were expecting.
Google and HTC announced an interesting partnership where Google will pay HTC $1.1 billion in cash for some HTC employees to join the company. In addition, Google will also get a non-exclusive licence for HTC intellectual property.
The employees that will join Google were already working with the Search giant when Google was developing the Pixel. This looks like it will be a seamless transition for these employees as they work at Google to develop the Pixel line. According to The New York Times, an estimated 2000 out of around 4000 employees are affected by the deal.
“As a pioneer of the smartphone market, we are very proud of our history of innovation. Our unmatched smartphone value chain, including our IP portfolio, and world-class talent and system integration capabilities, have supported Google in bolstering the Android market,” said Cher Wang, Chairwoman and CEO of HTC.
“HTC has been a longtime partner of Google and has created some of the most beautiful, premium devices on the market,” said Rick Osterloh, Senior Vice President of Hardware at Google.
According to the two companies, the transaction is still subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions and is expected to close by early 2018.
This move will definitely not affect the incoming Pixel 2 which we expect to be launched soon but we will start seeing the fruits of the deal with the launch of the Pixel 3.
