Breaking!!! Google Finally Acquires HTC

After a string of decent phones that failed to sell and a stock price that plunged so low the company was de-listed from the largest Taiwanese stock index, Google is finally ending months of speculation, but not by buying HTC, as previously rumored. Rather Google is purchasing the HTC staff behind the design of last year’s Pixel phone (really, what's the difference?), and gaining the (non-exclusive) use of HTC’s big bucket of intellectual property rights. All for the tune of $1.1 billion.

According to an HTC press release issued late Wednesday night, the deal involves a “definitive agreement under which certain HTC employees – many of whom are already working with Google to develop Pixel smartphones – will join Google.”

“HTC will receive US$1.1 billion in cash from Google as part of the transaction,” the press release continued. “Separately, Google will receive a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property.”

Previously there were strong rumors that Google would be acquiring HTC outright to get further into the hardware business and gain the kind of end-to-end control that Apple enjoys with its iPhones. Instead Google is buying a lot of brain to put behind its phone design.

Rick Osterloh, Senior Vice President of Hardware at Google, said:

HTC has been a longtime partner and has created some of the most beautiful, high-end devices on the market. We can’t wait to welcome members of the HTC team to join us on this journey.

Google and HTC have teamed up on a number of notable devices, including the first-ever Android phone, the T-Mobile G1 (aka the HTC Dream), the Nexus One from 2010, the Nexus 9 tablet from 2014, and the original Pixel phone from last year.

As we noted yesterday, one can only hope that Google treats this new team better than Motorola, which it acquired in 2011 and subsequently sold off to Lenovo in 2014. There’s reason to be optimistic though: unlike all those years ago, Google now has a lot more skin in the hardware game: aside from Pixel phones, there’s also the Google Home speaker, Chromecast streaming devices, Chromebooks and a VR headset; having some talent in-house to build on those efforts might certainly come in handy.