Following the resignation of HTC’s smartphone boss, the company has quietly confirmed the letting go of a portion of its US employees. According to a source of Digital Trends, the company laid off a few dozen to maybe 100 people, leaving only employees for HTC Global in the US office.
While we don’t expect any company to highlight layoffs, the company did provide the following statement to Digital Trends.
We have recently brought our smartphone and VR businesses under common leadership in each region.
Today, we announced a restructure in North America for the HTC smartphone business that will centralize the reporting structure within the region. In doing so, there have been some employee reductions to align the businesses and empower the teams to share more resources.
With the combining of the company’s smartphone and VR businesses, HTC likely hopes that the sharing of resources between teams will streamline whatever work is being done. It makes total sense, but it’s not a good sign with regard to the company’s smartphones and potential launches in the US.
While we’re still expecting at least one more flagship launch from HTC in the US, reported to be the U12, HTC’s presence in the US following that is unclear.