It was reported earlier this week that HTC was thinking about combining its smartphone and VR divisions. The reports picked up after the company’s president of smartphone operations resigned recently citing a “personal career plan.” The company has now officially confirmed that it’s combining its smartphone and virtual reality divisions. This will result in employee reductions in the combined division.
HTC’s smartphone division isn’t as substantial as it used to be in the first place as the company sold the team behind the design for the Pixel smartphones to Google last year for $1.1 billion.
Reports suggest that the number of employees that have been let go by HTC varies between a few dozen to around 100. HTC hasn’t confirmed the number itself but has said that it’s committed to the smartphone business still.
“We have recently brought our smartphone and VR businesses under common leadership in each region,” a spokesperson for the company said, adding that “Today we announced a restructure in North America for the HTC Smartphone business that will centralize the reporting structure within the region. In doing so, there have been some employee reductions to align the businesses and empower the teams to share more resources.”
It’s unclear how HTC is planning to compete in the smartphone market in the future. Its new flagship smartphone for 2018, the HTC U12, may not be enough to turn its fortunes around in this highly competitive market.
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