UPDATED 22:13 EDT / AUGUST 24 2017

NEWS

Report: HTC mulls ‘strategic options,’ including a full sale

Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC Corp. is working with an adviser as it looks at “strategic options” to revive its flagging business, according to one report.

Those options include the company selling off its virtual reality business Vive, spinning it off into a separate venture, and even a full sale of the company itself, though that option remains unlikely, Bloomberg reported.

A full sale of HTC is unlikely because the company’s businesses encompass such a wide scope that it doesn’t “fit obviously with one acquirer,” Bloomberg said.

The report comes during a tumultuous time for HTC, which was once one of the most successful smartphone companies around but has since fallen from grace. The company’s stock has declined by almost 75 percent in the last five years and 95 percent from its all-time high in April 2011. At present, the company is said to be worth around $1.8 billion.

HTC’s smartphone business has slowed down significantly both in China and the U.S. over the past few years. In response, the company has ventured out into new industries such as virtual reality, building products such as the high-end PC-based consumer HTC Vive virtual reality headset. Reviews of the HTC Vive have on the whole been positive, but the company was recently forced to slash its price by $200 to $599 in response to Facebook Inc.-owned Oculus VR decision to cut the price of it Oculus Rift headset.

Bloomberg says the HTC Vive is still outselling Oculus Rift, though neither company has released sales figures confirming this. Evidently, though, whatever HTC is making from its Vive sales isn’t enough to offset the slump in its main smartphone business.

Image: Kārlis Dambrāns/Flickr

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