US/Taiwan: Google making moves back into smartphone hardware

On Thursday, September 21, Google announced that it is paying US$1.1 billion for a division of Taiwan’s HTC.

Specifically, Google is buying HTC’s Pixel division in a second attempt to enter the smartphone hardware industry. After the all cash deal finalizes, Google will gain about 2,000 HTC employees and a non-exclusive HTC IP license. The companies also agreed to the possibility of collaboration in the future.

Although the HTC division does not manufacture the Pixel smartphones, Google is looking at developing its own hardware to better complement its Android operating system.

Full Content: Reuters

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