Google Is Close to Buying HTC

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monkeymagick

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The recent rumors of Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. buying HTC are almost coming to fruition. Bloomberg reports that Google are nearing the finalization of the deal. This won't be the first time the company has purchased a smart phone manufacturer as it previously acquired Motorola Mobility back in 2012. Trading for HTC has halted pending a "major announcement."

Googles Pixel is far from a top-selling phone. External estimates pegged sales at 552,000 units during its first quarter. Yet selling Pixels has auxiliary benefits for Google. Chief among them is the boost to its primary sales. With each Pixel phone it sells, Google doles out less in traffic acquisition costs, or TAC, the money it pays out to partners like Apple and carriers to install Googles search service. That cost has risen steadily, pulling down its sales totals last quarter in particular.
 
c_porter said:
Hopefully not the VR business :( I don't need room-scale spyware.
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Seems a fuzzy little right now. The original rumors seemed to be just the phone business though this article seems to be all of HTC? We should know shortly.
 
Well i’d rather google own my VR than Facebook. Let’s see if it’s included

Not really sure the value in their phone business, contract manufacturing is pretty easy these days and it seems an expensive way aquihire designers. If they wanted supply chain then go hire 200 ex Nokia people for sod all.

I guess when you’re google it’s sofa money though. It’s like me buying a Dell because I can’t be arsed
 
If you cant beat them, buy them!

Maybe this will give lifetime Android updates to HTC devices.
 
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Iratus said:
Well i’d rather google own my VR than Facebook. Let’s see if it’s included

Not really sure the value in their phone business, contract manufacturing is pretty easy these days and it seems an expensive way aquihire designers. If they wanted supply chain then go hire 200 ex Nokia people for sod all.

I guess when you’re google it’s sofa money though. It’s like me buying a Dell because I can’t be arsed
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Might be a patent portfolio they see value in. I think that's what the Motorola one was. Moto had a ton of patents. They toyed with their phones for a bit just long enough to sell the company off, keeping the portfolio (probably licensed in perpetuity to the new Moto owners).

These large tech companies love to hoard patents to out leverage their competitors patents. That way when Apple comes knocking for a rounded corner violation, they can counter claim for violating a something also entirely stupid.
 
Shintai said:
If you cant beat them, buy them!

Maybe this will give lifetime Android updates to HTC devices.
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Call me cynical but if this goes through, I expect I won't get any more updates for my HTC phones. "Here, have a coupon for $50 off a Pixel 2."
 
Maybe Google will finally stabilize their product lines.. the shotgun has many disadvantages.
 
Argg just what we need less company's to choose form.

Can't a company just make a working mans phone with top of the line specs and a removable battery that lasts all day? I could give 2 shits about how thin my phone is when i have to put it in a case so i can hold it. Why everyone wants to be an iphone clone is beyond me
 
if they buy it, lets hope they produce phones as good as what motorola did under them.

the nexus 6 was the best phone i ever owned and reluctantly, just moved to a pixel (got an awesome deal).

Hopefully, this time, they dont get "bullied" by samsung and release a proper phone that can command iphone prices (meaning with updates to match, including 5 years of updates)
 
The VR business is not part of that deal supposedly. VR is spun off from HTC's core business.
 
Well, HTC did make the first commercial Android phone. And the first Nexus phone. Google kinda owes them a favor or two.

And, unlike the bloated, too-diverse company Motorola was, HTC is a lot leaner, without as much (read no) regulatory baggage and dead-weight subsidiaries, and one could argue they have better design chops as well as a decent patent portfolio (and binding patent-sharing agreements with both Apple and Microsoft that run for a few more years).

Plus the Android-based market ain't so worried about Google competing as a manufacturer as they were back when they bought Motorola.

Finally, the fact that they're a Taiwanese company, with Taiwanese manufacturing plants has a lot of value since there's no US-based phone makers left to buy. Taiwan is a stable and safe place to do business as a US-owned company, and they've got a lot of local engineering, production and shipping talent and capacity on that island if Google wanted to ramp things up.
 
Croak said:
Well, HTC did make the first commercial Android phone. And the first Nexus phone. Google kinda owes them a favor or two.

And, unlike the bloated, too-diverse company Motorola was, HTC is a lot leaner, without as much (read no) regulatory baggage and dead-weight subsidiaries, and one could argue they have better design chops as well as a decent patent portfolio (and binding patent-sharing agreements with both Apple and Microsoft that run for a few more years).

Plus the Android-based market ain't so worried about Google competing as a manufacturer as they were back when they bought Motorola.

Finally, the fact that they're a Taiwanese company, with Taiwanese manufacturing plants has a lot of value since there's no US-based phone makers left to buy. Taiwan is a stable and safe place to do business as a US-owned company, and they've got a lot of local engineering, production and shipping talent and capacity on that island if Google wanted to ramp things up.
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Taiwan does have some advantages.

1. little need to explicitly go for vertical integration due to extreme proximity of suppliers, R&D, industrial park, ICT cluster and certification facilities.
2. Sourcing ease to PRC. Distance to all major Asian manufacturing hubs are less than 1000mi
3. Linguistic advantages for being trilingual in Mandarin, English and Japanese, and versed in business practices of all 3 cultural spheres
4. Accepts WTO framework and is a fully liberalized market with good transparency and low bureaucratic overhead to operate
5. Standard of living is rather high while GDP per capita is much lower than US
6. Robust infrastructure

Taiwan is not large enough to have a financially viable domestic market in the way that South Korea does, but the 24 million people stuck in that little island is a very good test market. A problem is that the petite scale of Taiwan makes its market susceptible to pump and dump by Wall Street giants.
Moreover, Taiwanese market dynamic isn't dominated by dynastic chaebols or Japanese style conglomerates. It's an SME-driven free-for-all since its economic boom of the late 70s. Having said that, the Japanese zaibatsus often have subsidiary or an oversea office in Taipei, despite having their major manufacturing and sales office over Shanghai.


(I guess I really am not cut out to be a codemonkey...)
 
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I find this to be quite interesting. HTC does need the capital infusion, and Google would rather not take the full burden of manufacturing on their hands here.
 
Note: Google only bought the part that's working on the Pixel, HTC still kept the part that is working on its own phones.

They also specifically bought only the Engineers, and not the CO's involved.
 
That's good. Now they can mess with it and sell everything to stupid Lenovo.
 
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