HTC Halts Trading, Could Announce Google Takeover in Major Announcement

This morning, multiple reports are suggesting that HTC has a major announcement coming within the next day that could mean the sale of their smartphone hardware business. That announcement could very well include details on Google buying portions of the HTC business, as was first reported almost two weeks ago.

Here is a breakdown of the happenings as it currently stands:

• The Taiwan Stock Exchange has halted HTC trading for the time being, in case you didn’t think this was real.
• Taiwanese media outlet, Apple Daily, is reporting that the deal is done and Google will indeed take over HTC’s original device manufacturer (ODM) operation.
• @evleaks says that an HTC town hall meeting is scheduled for tomorrow (9/21) and that at least one source expects Google to buy “certain” hardware engineering assets, though HTC will keep its brand. The branding could mean for Vive, rather than the smartphone brand.

• HTC finally issued a statement on all of these latest acquisition rumors and only said, “HTC does not comment on market rumor or speculation.” At least we got a statement!
• Bloomberg reporter Tim Culpan (you should follow him for breaking news on this story) says that HTC’s factory utilization has dropped recently and that Google would be a perfect match for the empty space there to fully design its own phones out of it.

We’ll update this as we have more.

// TWSE | Apple Daily | HTC