HTC Shifts Resources from Smartphones to AI Smart Glasses
HTC Senior Vice President Huang Zhaoying announced that the company is shifting its strategic resources from smartphones to AI smart glasses like the VIVE Eagle due to a lack of breakthroughs in smartphone innovation. Following the end of the U24 Pro product cycle, HTC's smartphone business will take a back seat as revenue from its AI smart glasses has already overtaken smartphone sales. This shift signals the formal winding down of HTC's legacy smartphone operations, which once pioneered the early Android era, in favor of wearable AI hardware. It reflects a broader industry trend where tech manufacturers pivot toward spatial computing and AI-powered wearables as smartphone market growth saturates. HTC recently expanded its VIVE Eagle lineup with new round-frame styles and software upgrades across Europe, North America, and Australia, focusing on fashion, AI capabilities, and privacy protection. Although Huang noted that HTC might re-evaluate smartphones if revolutionary technologies emerge, current R&D investments are entirely directed toward AI and extended reality (XR) content.
## BACKGROUND
HTC was a leading mobile innovator in the late 2000s, releasing the world's first commercial Android smartphone, the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1), in 2008. Over the past decade, intense competition from Apple, Samsung, and Chinese vendors led HTC to pivot toward virtual reality (VR) and extended reality (XR) under its VIVE brand. Extended reality combines physical and digital environments through AR, VR, and MR, where AI smart glasses act as lightweight compute nodes for real-time translation, photography, and voice assistance.