HTC sells half its Beats Audio stake back to Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre

HTC, who invested 300 million into Beats Audio almost a year ago, has announced its intentions to sell nearly 25 percent of that stake back to the company’s founders, Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, for $150 million.

It’s been reported for some time now that the Taiwan based manufacturer is struggling in the US smartphone market, despite modest improvements. Sparingly, HTC took a risk in buying half of Beats Audio to make it a potential game changer when it came to its smartphones. Of course, with this news, that venture has failed to a degree.

In a statement, HTC spun the news by saying that the share sale “provides Beats with more flexibility for global expansion while maintaining HTC’s major stake and commercial exclusivity in mobile.”

That said, I hope HTC can get its house in order, because I do enjoy its phones, which in my opinion, is the best handset quality on the market. We reviewed the One X, and we happened to enjoy it very much. I think HTC is going to have to try harder to get the carriers to commit to one version of its flagship phone, much like Samsung with its Galaxy S III.

Could you imagine if the company were able to get all carriers to carry the international version of the One X?

[Yahoo Finance; via Android Central]