HTC Will Not Be Bundling Beats Audio Headsets With Phones Anymore

[dgstorm]

Is this a $300 Million dollar case of buyers remorse? After spending that much to purchase a 51% stake of the Beats Audio company, HTC started bundling the Beats Audio headsets into their high-end smartphones, like the Rezound. However, don't expect to see that happen with the new HTC One X and the HTC EVO 4G LTE, or any other HTC phone in the near future. Apparently, that particular marketing campaign hasn't fared too well for HTC, because they have already decided to shelve it, or at least the headphone bundling part of it anyway. Reportedly, they will still work to integrate Beats Audio tech into their smartphones, but they will no longer bundle headphones with their phones. You will have to purchase them separately.

Obviously, on the surface, it seemed like it would have been a good idea: HTC bundles the Beats Audio headsets with their phones, to both add value to their lineup and to differentiate themselves in a crowded market. Unfortunately, the reality is that smartphone buyers don't really care about having a fancy set of headphones with their smartphones, and it took the relatively poor sales of the Rezound for HTC to figure this out. Here is a comment from Martin Fichter, an HTC product executive, regarding this:

"An accessory like the headphone doesn't factor in when someone is buying a smartphone. If they want a Beats headphone, they'll buy it directly."

Everyone out their raise your hand and sound off in the thread if you could have told them that before they spent $300 Million dollars to figure it out. Perhaps they should fire their marketing consultants...

Source: AndroidTablets.net via CNet

[UltraDroid]

Bummer! I was kind of hoping I could grab those white, full headphones that HTC is offering to their customers in Taiwan. The were complete headphones which cover the entire ear, rather than being earbuds, and were available only in that one market.