Google purchases HTC's Pixel team for US $1.1 billion

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

After weeks of speculation that Google would purchase HTC's smartphone business, we finally learn that the search giant has bought the Pixel team from HTC for $1.1 billion, while HTC will continue its own smartphone business. 

The team in question was the R&D team behind last year's Pixel and Pixel XL. This means around 2,000 people will move to Google. According to the agreement this grants Google a non-exclusive license for HTC's intellectual property. The deal is expected to be approved and closed by early 2018.

"This agreement is a brilliant next step in our longstanding partnership, enabling Google to supercharge their hardware business while ensuring continued innovation within our HTC smartphone and Vive virtual reality businesses," HTC co-founder and CEO Cher Wang said in a statement.

Google and HTC have a lot of shared history

The infusion of cash is good for HTC which can continue to focus on its modest share of the smarphone market as well as its thriving VR product segment. Google gets a big boost for the future of the Pixel phone and other hardware products. Google bought Motorola Mobility in 2011 and kept the company at a distance while it continued to create smartphones. CEO Rick Osterloh, as well as a number of Moto veterans where retained when Motorola was sold to Lenovo in 2014 for $2.91 billion while smartly keeping much of the patent stockpile.

The difference with the HTC deal is that Google is now a serious player in the premium smartphone space where it has consistently spearheaded its new technologies. Last year's Pixel boasted the highest rated camera performance as well as introduced Google Assistant, its Allo and Duo messaging platforms and other features.

Smartphone historians will see a bit of irony since HTC was the chosen partner for the very first Android handset, the HTC Dream. HTC was also tapped to create the first Nexus smartphone, which in retrospect, can be considered the genesis of what the Pixel devices stand for today. With the IP and the HTC engineers and designers under its own wing, Google can now truly build for the future of the smartphone.

Sources: The Verge