Google has agreed to buy part of HTC’s engineering and design teams for $1.1 billion (€923m), taking on a cadre of veterans that worked on the Pixel phone and could bolster its nascent hardware business.

Google has agreed to buy part of device manufacturer HTC for US$1.1bn to expand its efforts to build phones, speakers and other gadgets equipped with its arsenal of digital services.

Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC said that it would cut more than 2000 jobs slashing its workforce by 15 percent after posting its biggest ever quarterly loss.

Smartphone giant HTC has fired the starting pistol on smartphone launches in 2015 with the announcement of its new flagship phone, the much-rumoured One M9.