Google Completes $1.1 Billion Deal to Acquire Part of HTC Smartphone Division

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In the second half of 2017, there are rumors suggesting Google to buy HTC in order to step up its hardware business. The Mountain View-based company ended the rumors by singing a deal to acquire the HTC team which worked on the Pixel lineup. Today, Google has announced to have completed the $1.1 billion worth deal. However, we will still see new HTC-branded smartphone coming to the market.

With this deal, Google will get 2000 HTC engineers onboard for making the upcoming Pixel devices. The deal also includes a non-exclusive license for the HTC’s intellectual property. The whole team will be residing in Taiwan and Taipei will be the largest Google engineering site in APAC. While Google always looks after the software of its devices, from now on, even the hardware will be coming from Google team.

Let’s see what changes will this team brings to the upcoming Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL smartphones. The Pixel, Pixel XL, and Pixel 2 smartphones are manufactured by HTC for Google. Before to this, Google worked with HTC for quite a few Nexus smartphones and tablets. While HTC is struggling with its smartphone business, the company made great strides in the virtual reality field.

The company is now more focused on its Vive Virtual Reality business along with the Internet of Things, Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence. On the other hand, Google recently announced to open an AI lab in Beijing. It also announced the patent cross-licensing deal with the Tencent, one of the largest Chinese tech companies.

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