SoylentNews

frojack writes:

Android Central and many others are reporting that HTC has issued a Trading Halt pending a Major Announcement order to the markets.

The reason:

Google is expected to buy HTC's smartphone business altogether, taking on its research and development, manufacturing, distribution and supplier ties. HTC will continue to operate its other business units, but it isn't yet clear what would come of its HTC-branded phones.

It has been rumored that HTC was in the "final stage of negotiation with Google" for selling off its smartphone business, and it looks like things are coming to a head.

Google needs handsets to support its Pixel line of phones for Project Fi demands and has only been partly successful in filling these needs by contracting with manufacturers for the custom phones needed to support the multi-carrier Fi phones. HTC is currently manufacturing the Pixel line of phones for Google.

HTC has made outstanding phones that suffered from poor marketing, and has never garnered a significant market share.

See also https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-20/google-is-said-close-to-buying-htc-assets-to-bolster-hardware (Warning Auto-play Video) where Bloomberg's analysts points out:

A more Apple-like approach to smartphone production would also allow Google to steer Android in its preferred direction. The tech giant has struggled to get handset makers and carriers to ship Android devices with new, secure software. The Pixel was designed, in part, to prompt other Android phone makers to follow on the latest Google bells and whistles. Still, some Android partners are moving ahead with competing software efforts -- Huawei Technologies Co. linked up with Amazon's assistant, and Samsung Electronics Co. is building its own.

Original Submission