Official! Google Acquires HTC Worth Rp. 14 Trillion

HTC has been officially acquired by Google at a price of USD 1.1 billion or equivalent to Rp. 14.6 trillion. It is certain that HTC will get the full value of this acquisition in cash.

Google itself did not completely buy HTC, but acquired a portion of HTC’s smartphone and Virtual Reality (VR) division and its team. In this acquisition agreement, it is known that Google owns the rights to a number of HTC teams which are the people behind the development of Google’s Pixel smartphones. This acquisition agreement also states that Google is entitled to a number of non-exclusive licenses belonging to HTC.

The acquisition of HTC’s smartphone and VR business by Google is not without reason. This acquisition is touted as Google’s effort to realize its ambitions in the smartphone and VR business.

“This deal is a brilliant next step in our long-term partnership, allowing Google to take over their hardware business while ensuring continued innovation in our HTC phones and our VIVE virtual reality business.“said Cher Wang, CEO of HTC, as quoted from the detikINET page, Thursday (21/9/2021).

Not only from HTC, Google Senior Vice President Hardware Rick Osterloh also said that this HTC acquisition will help Google to realize various innovations on Google devices in the future, such as Pixel smartphones, DayDream VR Headsets, Google Wifi, Google Home and Chromecast.

“That’s the reason we signed a deal with HTC, which will provide more product innovations in the years to come,“said Osterloh, quoted from the detikINET page.

Although it has been acquired, it does not mean that there will be no more HTC smartphones in the future. HTC Chief Financial Officer Peter Shen said if HTC will continue the business smartphone those that were not acquired by Google. HTC CEO Cher Wang said the agreement between the two would ensure continuous innovation for smartphone HTC and business virtual reality Live them. In fact, this Taiwanese manufacturer will present their latest flagship smartphone even though this could be their last smartphone.

“The deal also supports HTC’s ongoing strategy of branded smartphones, enabling a slimmer product portfolio, operational efficiencies and greater financial flexibility. HTC will continue to have best-in-class engineering talent, currently working on its next flagship, following the successful launch of the HTC U11 earlier this year,“said HTC quoted from detikINET, Thursday (21/9/2021).

Speculation about HTC which will sell part or even the whole company has been heard since a few months ago. Even before the news of this acquisition was officially published, the public had seen many signs pointing to HTC being acquired by Google.

One of them is when HTC stopped selling shares in Taiwan, which is the country of origin of this smartphone. HTC’s reason for stopping the sale of shares is because they will release important information, which is predicted to be the announcement of HTC’s acquisition by Google.

Although part of its business was acquired by Google, the purchase of HTC’s smartphone and VR division by Google has also become a breath of fresh air for HTC. The reason HTC is reported to be on the path of loss for months. HTC’s stock price has continued to decline in recent years. It is reported that HTC fell 12 percent in 2021 and the company’s valuation is predicted to be at USD 1.9 billion (equivalent to Rp. 23.5 trillion).

This is not the first time Google has bought a smartphone company. Google once bought Motorola Mobility for USD 12.5 billion or equivalent to Rp. 166.6 trillion in 2011. Google then sold Motorola to Lenovo in January 2021.

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