HTC will no longer be shipping Beats headphones with its new handsets - at least in the immediate future.
The decision has come after the music-centric HTC Rezound - which came bundled with a pair of the high-end earbuds - failed to sell.
Speaking to
CNET, HTC product executive Martin Fichter explained that consumers are more concerned with the functionality on their new handset than the brand of their headphones.
"An accessory like the headphone doesn't factor in when someone is buying a smartphone," Fichter revealed. "If they want a Beats headphone, they'll buy it directly."
BackBeatsHTC acquired a 51 per cent stake in Beats back in August 2011, an investment which cost the firm $300 million.
Soon afterwards, handsets like the
HTC Sensation XE began to appear, which came packaged with Beats-branded headphones and pre-loaded with Beats Audio software.
According to Fichter, the Taiwanese manufacturer will continue to include the Beats Audio tech in its blowers, but customers looking to pick up the
HTC One X should expect to find their gratis headphones a little less red.
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The main reason I chose this phone was that it came with these earphones. Unfortunately I lost them Three weeks after purchase. The ridiculously high price of the beats range immediately puts me off, so i wouldn't just go out and buy a pair.
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RB10 | 13:51 - 11 April 2012
@Sayloday,
Yup, that was my bad. Nationality updated. :-)
Richard
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mr_bez | 12:42 - 11 April 2012
Ouch. $300 million to find out something I'd have told them for free. You only have to look at the quality of the headphones you get bundled with an iPod/iPhone to work that one out.
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Sayloday | 12:14 - 11 April 2012
Umm HTC is a Taiwanese company not Korean.
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