What happened to HTC? From ThunderBolt to VR (2026)

HTC was the biggest Android name in 2011

HTC built the first Android phone and, for a while, the most popular ones in the US. The Taiwanese company made the HTC Dream (sold as the T-Mobile G1) in 2008, the first phone on the market to run Android. It also built Google’s Nexus One in 2010.

In 2010 HTC sold 24.6 million handsets, up 111% on 2009 (Wikipedia). In the third quarter of 2011, researcher Canalys put HTC first in the US with 24% of smartphone sales, ahead of Samsung at 21%, Apple at 20% and BlackBerry at 9%.

The phone that captured that moment was the ThunderBolt. Verizon put it on sale on March 17, 2011, at $249.99 with a two-year contract, as the first smartphone on its 4G LTE network. Verizon promised downloads of 5 to 12 Mbps, and the phone had a 4.3-inch screen, an 8-megapixel camera and a kickstand (Verizon press release via Phandroid). Gadget Daily News pointed readers to a hands-on video review the day it went on sale.

The ThunderBolt also showed HTC’s weak spots. Owners reported short battery life and reboots, and its update to Android 2.3 didn’t arrive until September 2011. It got Android 4.0 in February 2013, close to two years after launch (Wikipedia).

Why HTC phones faded

HTC lost ground because Samsung and Apple outspent and outsold it, and its own launches kept slipping. The US lead lasted only a few quarters.

The numbers fell fast:

Date	HTC milestone	Source
Q3 2011	24% of US smartphone sales, number one	Canalys via Wikipedia
February 2013	9.3% of US smartphone subscribers	comScore
Q1 2013	Profit down 98.1% year over year	Wikipedia
Q3 2013	First-ever quarterly loss, about $100 million	Wikipedia
2015	Stock down about 90% from 2011	Wikipedia

Three things hurt most. First, Samsung’s Galaxy line took over as the default Android phone, and the 2013 HTC One sold below the Galaxy S4 despite strong reviews. HTC itself blamed marketing. Second, the 2013 HTC One launched late, which HTC cited as one reason for its weak first quarter that year. Third, HTC was an early Windows Phone maker, and Microsoft’s switch to Windows Phone 8 in 2012 forced extra redesign work and R&D cost.

There was a security cost too. In February 2013, HTC settled with the US Federal Trade Commission over security flaws on more than 18 million phones and tablets, and agreed to patch them.

The VR pivot and the Google deals

HTC’s answer was virtual reality. It unveiled the VIVE headset with Valve on March 1, 2015, and the consumer version shipped in April 2016. By November 2016 HTC said it had sold at least 140,000 VIVE units (Wikipedia).

Then came the first Google deal. On September 21, 2017, Google and HTC announced that certain HTC employees, many already working on Google’s Pixel phones, would join Google. HTC got $1.1 billion in cash, and Google got a non-exclusive license to HTC’s patents (HTC press release). Neither company put a staff number in that release.

HTC said at the time that it would keep making its own phones. It did, but on a smaller scale. The U12+ flagship followed in May 2018 and topped out at Android 9 (Wikipedia).

The second Google deal came on January 23, 2025. Google paid HTC $250 million in cash, some of HTC’s XR (extended reality) team joined Google, and Google got a non-exclusive license to HTC’s XR patents. HTC said its VIVE products, such as the VIVE Focus Vision headset, would keep being supported and developed (HTC press release).

Deal	Date	Google paid	What Google got
Pixel team	Announced September 21, 2017	$1.1 billion	Some HTC staff, many on Pixel; HTC patent license
XR team	Announced January 23, 2025	$250 million	Some XR staff, XR patent license

Did Google buy HTC?

No. Google bought people and patent licenses twice, not the company. HTC is still an independent company listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (ticker 2498), and the 2017 press release said the deal supported HTC’s own branded phones.

Co-founder Cher Wang runs it. She founded HTC with Peter Chou and H. T. Cho in 1997 and took over as CEO in September 2020, after Yves Maitre stepped down (Wikipedia). The confusion is understandable, because the Pixel phones Google sells today trace back partly to engineers who used to work at HTC.

What HTC sells in 2026

As of October 2026, HTC’s US website offers VIVE products and still has a product page for the HTC 5G Hub. There’s no smartphone section. The VIVE lineup on vive.com includes the Focus Vision headset, the VIVE Eagle smart glasses, the VIVE Flow, and motion trackers. HTC moved the VIVE line toward business and enterprise buyers from 2021.

HTC hasn’t stopped making phones entirely. Its UK site still lists the HTC U24 pro, a mid-range phone with a 6.8-inch 120 Hz OLED screen, a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chip, 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It launched on Android 14. It also keeps two things HTC fans liked: a headphone jack and a microSD slot.

Can you still buy an HTC phone in the US?

Not from HTC. Its US site doesn’t sell phones, and US carriers don’t carry them. You can import a U24 pro from an overseas seller, but we wouldn’t recommend it for most people.

The network bands are the main problem. HTC lists LTE bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 28 for the U24 pro. That list doesn’t include band 13, the 700 MHz Verizon LTE band the ThunderBolt itself used (Wikipedia). Coverage on any US carrier could be patchy, so check the band list against your carrier before you buy. You also shouldn’t count on US warranty service for a phone HTC doesn’t sell here.

Can you still get updates for an old HTC?

No, not for any HTC phone sold in the US. The ThunderBolt stopped at Android 4.0, and the 2018 U12+ stopped at Android 9 (Wikipedia). Neither will run current versions of many apps that need newer Android, and neither gets security patches.

Your HTC	Last Android version	Safe for banking and email?
ThunderBolt (2011)	4.0.4	No
U12+ (2018)	9	No
U24 pro (2024, not sold in US)	Launched on 14	Check the latest patch date in Settings

HTC hasn’t published a clear update schedule for the U24 pro that we could find. If you have one, open Settings > About phone and check the security patch date. Anything more than a few months old means the phone isn’t getting regular fixes.

Old HTC phones were popular with tinkerers. In May 2011 HTC said it would stop locking the bootloaders on its Android phones, and some older models can run community software. Our guide to whether Android is still open source covers how projects like LineageOS work and which phones they support.

HTC’s story runs close to BlackBerry’s: an early leader that Apple and Samsung squeezed out within a few years. The BlackBerry timeline covers that collapse.

What to do next

If you still use an old HTC, check its Android version and security patch date in Settings > About phone. If it’s on Android 9 or older, move banking and email to a newer phone.
Before you sell or recycle an HTC, back up your photos and contacts, then do a factory reset.
If you want an HTC phone anyway, compare the U24 pro’s band list with your carrier’s bands before importing one.
If you’re after HTC’s current products, look at the VIVE headsets on vive.com instead of its phones.

What happened to HTC phones?