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Google all set to buy HTC’s assets for $1.1 bn

TAIPEI: Smartphone maker HTC has said that it was selling part of its smartphone business to the search engine giant Google for $1.1 billion.

“The deal includes intellectual property licensing and half of its research staff, or around 2,000 people, and is expected to be completed in early 2018 pending regulatory approval,” HTC said.

“For Google, the deal will further strengthen its investment in and commitment to smartphones and its hardware business… it shows that Google sees Taiwan as a key hub for innovative technology,” HTC spokesman Peter Shen told a press conference in Taipei.

The deal marks Google’s second major foray into smartphone manufacturing. It purchased Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in 2012 and sold it off to China’s Lenovo Group Ltd for less than $3 billion two years later.

Google’s strategy of licensing Android for free and profiting from embedded services such as search and maps has made Android the dominant mobile operating system with some 89 percent of the global market.

M M Alam

M. M. Alam is a Pakistan-based working journalist since 1981. Karachi University faculty gold medalist Alam began his career four decades ago by writing for Dawn, Pakistan’s highest circulating English daily. He has worked for region’s leading publications, global aviation periodicals including Rotors (of USA) and vetted New York Times as permanent employee of daily Express Tribune. Alam regularly covers international aviation and defense-related events including Salon Du Bourget (France), Farnborough (United Kingdom), Dubai (UAE). Alam has reported thousands of events and interviewed hundreds of people in Pakistan, UAE, EU, UK and USA. Being Francophone Alam also coordinates with a number of French publications.