Google’s $1.1 Billion Deal With HTC Has Been Completed

Last year in something of a surprising move, Google announced that they will be acquiring HTC’s smartphone development team for a cool $1.1 billion. Now in a blog post by Google’s SVP of Hardware Rick Osterloh, he has confirmed that the deal between Google and HTC has been officially completed.

Osterloh mentions how the completion of this deal will see a ton of experience brought in to Google’s hardware development team. “These new colleagues bring decades of experience achieving a series of ‘firsts’ particularly in the smartphone industry—including bringing to market the first 3G smartphone in 2005, the first touch-centric phone in 2007, and the first all-metal unibody phone in 2013.”

He also points out that this is the same team that they have been working with for the Pixel and Pixel 2 handsets, and presumably with all these employees now essentially being part of Google, the company can leverage that experience to help make new smartphones, presumably the Pixel 3 being one of them.

He adds, “Today, we start digging in with our new teammates, guided by the mission to create radically helpful experiences for people around the world, by combining the best of Google’s AI, software and hardware.” Osterloh also mentions that with the deal being completed, it will see Google’s operations expand in the Asia Pacific region, namely Taiwan which is where HTC is based in.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Google, HTC