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HTC to sell part of XR business to Google for $250 million

Android XR

A recent report from CNBC has revealed that Google and HTC have reached an agreement for HTC to sell parts of its XR unit for extended reality (XR) devices to Google for $250 million. Part of this agreement also means that some employees from HTC in Taiwan will be transferred to Google in the USA.

According to HTC, the deal is expected to be done sometime within the first quarter of this year. Lu Chia-te, HTC vice president and general counsel, further clarified that Google has received its IP rights as a non-exclusive license.

Therefore, this is not a buyout nor an exclusive license. In the future, HTC will still retain the ability to use, utilize, and even further develop it without any restrictions.

Regarding the deal, Google also released the following statement:

We've been investing in XR for more than a decade, and just last month introduced the Android XR platform with our strategic industry partners. Today we signed an agreement to welcome some of the HTC VIVE engineering team to Google, which is subject to customary closing conditions. They are an incredibly strong technical team with a proven track record in the VR space, and we are looking forward to working with them to accelerate the development of the Android XR platform across the headsets and glasses ecosystem.

This is not the first time HTC has struck a deal with Google. Remember, back in 2017, when Google bought HTC's smartphone division for a whopping $1.1 billion. Just like Google's latest XR deal with HTC, the purchase came with staff from HTC who were transferred over to Google.

HTC used to be a dominant smartphone manufacturer, producing popular smartphones like the HTC One M7 and the One M8. It made sense for Google to go for HTC, given the company's expertise, plus Google had just released their first Pixel devices a year before, and HTC played a role in its production.

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