Taiwanese electronics company HTC will halt the trading of its shares tomorrow (21 September), as it looks ever more likely that the rumours of a Google takeover are true.  

The Taiwanese stock exchange announced that “trading in the shares of HTC Corporation and the securities underlying the company will be halted starting 21 September 2017 pending the release of material information”.

Google and HTC, of course, already have a close relationship – with HTC manufacturing the Google Pixel smartphone. Despite this, both companies are remaining tight-lipped over the potential deal with a HTC statement simply saying: “HTC does not comment on market rumour or speculation.”

Google has previous when it comes to acquiring handset makers. Back in 2011, the tech giant bought Motorola for $12.5bn (£9.5bn), but offloaded it to China’s Lenovo three years later for just $2.9bn. It’s likely that HTC will cost considerably less than the amount Google paid for Motorola, as the Taiwanese company has had a rough time over the last few years – with shares falling 95 per cent since 2011.