Chinese consumer electronics group TCL formally announced that they will acquire the Palm brand from HP.
Li Dongsheng, chairman of TCL Group, said that the acquisition of Palm is different from the acquisition of Alcatel. Palm has its fans in America and its operating ideas are similar with Apple and this type of fandom can give Palm strength. Li said the Palm brand still has value in some of the global markets and people expect its re-emergence to continue to provide innovative products.
TCL will launch new Palm products at the end of 2015. On the completion of the acquisition, the company will establish Palm as a high-end smartphone brand and it will be positioned as an innovative mobile terminal brand, which will be closely related to users and fans.
Guo Aiping, chief executive officer of TCL Communication, said that this acquisition is limited to the Palm brand and it does not include other assets such as employees.
According to TCL, the company will implement other acquisitions at the proper time. Due to the severe global industrial competition, some companies will be eliminated and some of them still have valuable businesses and technologies.
Headquartered in the U.K., Palm's first WebOS smartphone was named Palmpre. In 2010, HP acquired Palm for USD1.2 billion. However, the company stopped using of Palm brand one year after the acquisition and it fully terminated the production of WebOS devices 18 months after the closing of the acquisition.