TAIPEI/SAN FRANCISCO: Alphabet Inc's Google said it would pay US$1.1bil (RM4.61bil) for the division at Taiwan's HTC Corp that develops the U.S. firm's Pixel smartphones – its second major foray into phone hardware after an earlier costly failure.
The all-cash deal will see Google gain 2,000 HTC employees, roughly equivalent to one fifth of the Taiwanese firm's total workforce. It will also acquire a non-exclusive license for HTC's intellectual property and the two firms agreed to look at other areas of collaboration in the future.