Google Considering HTC Buyout – Report

Google is reportedly said to be considering buying -- or investing in -- Taiwanese Android smartphone maker HTC, as part of the tech giant's renewed push into mobile software and hardware integration.

Taiwanese paper the Commercial Times says that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is in the final stages of negotiation to buy or make a strategic investment in High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) (Taiwan: 2498). The smartphone maker has fallen from a high of a 10.7% share of the US smartphone market in 2011 to just over 2% at the beginning of this year, according to comScore Inc.

And Google, of course, has tried to buy its way into the smartphone market before without much success. In 2011, Google bought Motorola Mobility LLC for $12.5 billion, then sold it for $2.9 billion to Lenovo Group Ltd. (Hong Kong: 992) three years later.

HTC, however, did manufacture the well-regarded Google-branded Pixel phone in 2016, with a new version expected soon. At the time, company executives stressed a new focus on smartphone hardware, as it attempted to bring digital assistants and virtual reality to its mobile platforms. (See Google's New Dream: Pixel, VR & an AI Assistant With Smarts.)

— Dan Jones, Mobile Editor, Light Reading