Google completes $1.1 billion deal to buy chunk of HTC

Google has completed its $1.1 billion deal to buy a chunk of HTC’s smartphone division. Announced back in September, the paperwork has now been finalised to bring the team behind the Pixel phone to Google.

In total some 2,000 HTC engineers will transfer over to Google. The firm will also receive a non-exclusive licence for HTC’s intellectual property. The deal significantly boosts Google’s hardware department, with many of HTC’s smartphone development team bringing their expertise over to Google. It also gives Google a vast new engineering base in Taipei, Taiwan, where HTC is located. That makes the location the largest engineering site for Google in Asia Pacific, and it is likely to be the source of new products from the company going forward.

“I’m delighted that we’ve officially closed our deal with HTC, and are welcoming an incredibly talented team to work on even better and more innovative products in the years to come,” Rick Osterloh, Google’s senior VP of hardware, wrote in a blog post. “These new colleagues bring decades of experience achieving a series of “firsts” particularly in the smartphone industry—including bringing to market the first 3G smartphone in 2005, the first touch-centric phone in 2007, and the first all-metal unibody phone in 2013.”

HTC is retaining its Vive VR division and it will continue to make its own smartphones.