HTC "will not consider," an acquisition by ASUS

by Mark Tyson on 15 June 2015, 12:46

Tags: ASUSTeK (TPE:2357), HTC (TPE:2498)

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HTC is not interested in advances from potential suitor ASUS, according to a statement posted to the Taiwan stock exchange. The rebuttal follows ASUS Chairman Johnny Shih's talk to shareholders at its AGM last week where he wouldn't rule out the possibility of buying struggling HTC.

In an official statement today HTC said that it "has not made any contact with Asus regarding this matter, and it will not consider a merger with Asus". That rather flat refusal seems rather standoffish for a company that recently downgraded its earnings outlook and suffered another steep fall in its stock price as a result. HTC's moderate recent success mostly comes off the back of its HTC One designs, and this seems to be weakening thanks to it gripping ever-so-tightly to the original design that provided it with a 'dead cat bounce'.

Augmenting the AGM reports, the ASUS chief financial officer later told Reuters that he and Johnny Shih had talked privately "about the topic". The heat from the ASUS acquisition plan chitter chatter over the weekend resulted in HTC's shares rising by 10 per cent today. However we haven't seen the result of the official HTC rebuttal as the Taipei markets are now closed.

HTC shares have fallen a long way since their 2011 heyday

One in ten smartphones sold used to carry the HTC brand but it hasn't been able to lift itself from a long period of decline in market share. ASUS meanwhile has steadily grown its PC and laptop sales and is starting to gain traction with its tablets and smartphones. This year ASUS smartphones, centring on the powerful but reasonably priced ZenPhone 2 series, are expected to see near 90 per cent year on year growth (but at around 17 million smartphone sales expected in 2016, it will still be a minor player).



HEXUS Forums :: 3 Comments

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I know three people with HTC phones and they all say the same things, “hardware good, software is also reasonable in the main, but there's bugs in some places that make you want to throw the phone”. As a (disinterested) 3rd party I'm not that convinced by HTC's software updates - they seem slowish and patchy.

When all's said and done though, it'll surely be down to the shareholders to decide whether HTC transforms to become “HTC - an Asus brand company” or stays separate? That's assuming that Asus actually does make a formal bid, and there's a world of difference between that and “having discussions”.
HTC and ASUS would be an awesome fusion in my eyes. It's always hard for be to decide between both of then. From that day on, it won't :)
To be honest I don't think Asus ‘needs’ HTC, Asus can easily make their own skins for the top of android (they already do on their phones), their hardware can easily be on a par with htc if they make their phones using the same principles and material choices as their zen laptops and stick in some decent hardware and most importantly UPDATE software quickly. I'd also argue that on a consumer scale that more people know of Asus than HTC.

HTC on the other hand are pretty much shooting themselves in the foot all the time, ‘relatively’ slow updates drive existing customers away, hardware is honestly looking stale and they kept on with sense ui when everyone was going ‘lightweight’, they're now coming round but it might be too late to regain traction. Then they have the issue of samsung, lenovo/motorola and even asus eating into their margins.