Google’s acquisition of a $1.1 billion chunk of HTC pushes the Internet giant further along in its pursuit of greater in-house hardware expertise. The Taiwanese company will shift 2,000 employees, or one-fifth of the smartphone maker’s workforce, over to Google. Google’s phone business is chugging along, but the acquisition may not be enough to make it truly competitive. After all, this has been tried before: Google bought Motorola’s mobility segment in 2011 before selling it again at a fraction of the price.
Statista has compiled a chart of Google’s 10 biggest acquisitions, a list ranging from April 2007’s DoubleClick advertising campaign manager to HTC on Sept. 21:
