Reports are coming in that HTC may be losing its partnership with Beats Audio as the Wall Street Journal reports that Beats Electronics is considering buying out HTC’s 25% stake in the firm as it looks to expand its options in the market.
HTC bought into Beats with a cool $300 million and now Beats Electronics is looking to set to away from the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer. Beast Audio components and branding has been on HTC’s handsets ever since the Sensation XE, with Beats Audio offering improved audio performance and sounds for smartphone users.
If Beats is looking to step away from HTC this may be a massive loss for the mobile manufacturer which has been on a bit of a handset roll in recent months with the excellent HTC One and its sister handsets the HTC One Mini and soon to be revealed One Max.
According to the Wall Street Journal, people “familiar with the matter” have said that Beats Electronics is looking to replace the Taiwanese firm with a new investor who can provide money for future growth.
This isn’t the first time that HTC and Beats relationship has been strained as last summer Beats bought 25% of original shares (buying 150 million of the original 300 million) back from HTC which prompted everyone to say that the companies were separating back then.
It will be a shame for HTC to lose such a great in built feature for its smartphones but with HTC offering a great quality on their current generation of smartphones it’s not the end of the world. Especially as beats lost some all-important street cred when they stopped their support with Hip Hop megastar Dr. Dre.
It’s all speculation at the moment with neither HTC nor Beats responding to the rumours.