By We just got off the teleconference where HTC and Beats formally announced their new relationship. While that call didn’t tell us much more than what we already knew from news leaked and made official late last night, a nice nugget came from a retail partner shortly after the call ended. Best Buy is offering 20% off of any Beats by Dre headphones for anyone who buys an HTC smartphone this weekend. A good deal if you’re in the market for these two categories of products.
In the call itself, HTC confirmed that their investment was a 51% majority stake buyout through a $300 million investment, meaning they now own Beats. Nothing will change strategically or operationally in their core business – Beats will continue to run just as it always has, offering “premium” headphones and enhanced audio experiences inside of laptops. As for smartphones, Beats will be an exclusive entity of HTC’s – no one else can get in on this train.
That said, we should note that Beats integration might not be all that it’s cracked up to be when it’s all said and done. Most of the magic will come through software enhancement, something other OEMs have done on their own and have done well.
We’re still hopeful HTC and Beats will eventually develop new external speakers of higher quality, but we won’t get our hopes up. And anyone who owns a recently-launched HTC phone knows that the speaker quality on these things kinda stink. But that’s what this buyout is all about so let’s hope they put their newfound fortune to good use.
meh….I still don’t see how this is “Big news”
Who want’s that trash anyway?
They have shitty audio quality and look ugly.
You sound bitter. Did Someone hurt you? Was it Dr. Dre? :(
Beats is just overpriced, crappy audio hardware. I’ll stick with my Sennheisers, thanks.
I second that. Loving my Sennheiser MM 550s.
I am saving my money for the Bose QC15..sorry, Gimme Gingerbread on my Tbolt or tell me that Apple has lost in a patent lawsuit or Samsung has decided to stop manufacturing some of the innards of the iPhone and iPad or LG and Toshiba have jumped ship, leaving them with their pants around their ankles. This, this is meaningless to most of the people on this forum.
When I was researching noise canceling headphones for traveling, the same two things came up over and over again. First, the noise canceling doesn’t work anywhere near as well as any of the competitors. Second, Beats break a lot. Not good considering how much they are.
Audiophiles are more obnoxious than hardware snobs.
This along with the improved camera tech in the MyTouch4G Slide shows a real effort on the part of HTC to tackle their previous weaknesses. Good for them (and us).