Google: Tech giants close to acquiring smartphone maker HTC

Google is reportedly making a move to acquire Taiwan smartphone maker HTC.

According to a report in a Taiwanese publication, the two companies are in the final stages of acquisition talks, with the report not saying how much Google may buy HTC for.

This development would come as a surprise for followers of the company, having seen that they had earlier in 2011 bought smartphone company Motorola for $12.9billion, which it eventually sold off in 2014 to Lenovo for $2.9billion.

This move is also being seen as a strategy to challenge the iPhone in the hardware market as Google has begun making its own devices called Pixel phones.

HTC-One-mini (google)

According to the Commercial Times article noted by USB on Thursday, September 7, 2017, the deal would involve only HTC's smartphone research-and-development team. UBS said it expected that a deal would be immaterial to the financials of Google's parent company, Alphabet.

Of the potential benefits of the deal, UBS said, "Deeper integration of hardware/software would offset some of the Android fragmentation issues that do not plague Apple iOS."

Shares of Alphabet were unchanged in after-hours trading on Thursday.

HTC is said to be selling because it has been struggling with its smartphone sales and virtual-reality-headset business.

Google is having a renewed interest in hardware, having now seeing it as a growth area for the company outside of its core ad business.

Google is expected to release an update to the Pixel phone and a new touchscreen Chromebook in October.

Source: Pulse.ng