HTC’s smartphone head steps down following on from Google acquisition

A few months ago, Google announced that it would be acquiring a chunk of HTC's smartphone business for $1.1 billion. In the deal, most of HTC's smartphone design team moved over to Google. Now it looks HTC is going to be losing another member of its ranks, the company's president for Smartphones and Connected Devices, Chialin Chang, stepping down.

Chang had previously been HTC's CFO and eventually became its head of global sales. As The Verge points out, Chang was also one of the last remaining high-level executive not to already departed the company. However, after Google acquired HTC's smartphone design and engineering teams, his position was somewhat redundant.

HTC hasn't officially quit the smartphone business just yet, but with the Google deal and now this, it is seeming increasingly likely that HTC may stop producing its own phones. Before then though, HTC does have a major smartphone launch planned for this year, with the HTC U12.

KitGuru Says: HTC's smartphone sales have been dwindling for years and now with most of the company's smartphone team gone, it wouldn't be surprising to see them drop out of the phone business. Currently, Chang's position as head of Smartphones remains unfilled, another indicator that perhaps HTC is moving on from that side of the business. 

Become a Patron!