HTC announced on Friday that the company will no longer ship Beats Audio earbuds or other premium headphones with its current smartphone line because customers simply are not buying the devices for the premium headsets.
The announcement was made by Product executive Martin Fichter who told CNET that instead the company would ship their phones with ordinary headphones as they did before the company bought a controlling interest in Beats Audio.
It’s possible that some future HTC smartphones will receive free access to Beats Audio headphones however current models such as the One series and the HTV Evo 4G LTE will be without the premium earbud feature.
In the meantime HTC will continue to offer premium Beats Audio sound on their devices without the headphones.
It’s believed that the company is scaling back its offering because the headsets increased the prices of HTC products at a time when competitors were creating smartphones with better price points.
For the remainder of 2012 HTC plans to focus on the core selling aspects of smartphones in order to compete in a crowded Google Android space that has become increasingly dominated by Samsung and its Galaxy line of devices.
As I reported last week the company has been eyeing music streaming service MoG which could lead to a mobile music service that competes with the likes of Spotify. HTC had previously attempted to launch its own music service but it failed to catch on and was quickly abandoned.
Did you buy an HTC smartphone because it came with Beats Audio earbuds?
