Last week marked the official time of the end of the partnership between Beats Audio and the smartphone manufacturing giant, HTC.
Just under a month ago, rumors spread that Beats Audio had plans to move away from HTC entirely. Looking to buy back the remaining 25% stake that HTC holds, Beats Audio put up $265 million to reacquire the minority stake. Even though Beats is now an unrestricted company again it seems as if they are still looking for a new owner.
CEO and Co-founder of Beats, Jimmy Iovine, had this to say about the final transaction:
“These transactions represent the evolution of the financial strength and significant growth prospects of Beats… Carlyle is a fantastic investment partner and we look forward to building the next chapter of Beats.”
HTC has also come out to say that they will be receiving their repayment of $150 million for promissory notes plus accrued interest. HTC had this to stay about the ending of this partnership:
“Over the past two years, HTC and Beats have enjoyed a solid business partnership in delivering superior mobile audio experiences for consumers worldwide.”
HTC tried taking up their new BoomSound, that is found on the HTC One to claim that the sound is equally, if not better than the old Beats technology.
As for Beats, their current plan is to rebrand their newly bought music streaming service, MOG. As HTC struggles to regain market share from Apple and Samsung with the HTC One, which so far, hasn’t made all too much of a market change, many wonder what HTC has left up their sleeves.
2 Comments
Won’t ever buy from beats. I manage blogs for 10 pretty big sites (> 20,000 hits a day) and for a while beats audio was the biggest spammer we had. No amount of emails or letters dissuaded these guys, nor was there even an “I’m sorry but an affiliate is a jerk” explanation. I don’t get near as many these days but I remember all too well the hours I spent cleaning up their ‘marketing campaign’.
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Samsung or Sony need beats!