A few weeks ago HTC and Apple surprised the tech-loving crowds by announcing an unexpected settlement that put an end to the legal quarrel between the two, a fight that was largely won by the iPhone maker at the time.
While Apple still fights in courts two other important Android OEMs, Samsung and Google’s Motorola, the brawl with HTC is now over, and it looks like the settlement is good news for the Taiwanese company.
According to Focus Taiwan, HTC China president Ray Yam stated that the HTC-Apple deal will benefit the company, as HTC will be able to utilize resources to drive innovation rather than finding workarounds to avoid patent suits from Apple:
HTC wasted too many resources on the Apple lawsuits, which were seen as “a sword hanging over our heads,” Yam said.
Since the settlement, HTC has encouraged its employees during various meetings to “take broader steps,” he said.
“The biggest benefit to us is that we can put more energy into innovation, which is more important than anything else for a technology company,” Yam said.
HTC is rumored to be working on some interesting Android devices that will hit stores later this year, but the fact that it’s not on Apple’s patent-infringing radar anymore may not help the company get back on top of the Android business that easily, an ecosystem dominated by Samsung, at least according to Barclays:
HTC continues, however, to face the same structural problems it had before the settlement, such as lost market share in the U.S. and intensifying competition in China’s smartphone market, British bank Barclays Plc cautioned.
Unless HTC and Apple build further business relationships or cooperate on mobile devices, Barclays believed the settlement remains a non event in terms of HTC’s fundamentals.
Are you buying an HTC device next year?
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