HTC played down reports that Microsoft is set to increase the amount of royalties charged to licence a number of smartphone patents, which followed debate about the sums the US computing giant is generating from vendors such as HTC. In a statement, HTC said that a licensing agreement was signed with Microsoft during 2010, and that “at this point, Microsoft has not demanded HTC to raise royalties on smartphones.” At the time, Microsoft noted that the deal was related to “HTC’s mobile phones running the Android mobile platform,” and Microsoft has subsequently taken legal action against Motorola, arguing that this company’s Android devices infringe its intellectual property.

According to Walter Pritchard, an analyst with finance house Citi, Microsoft gets around US$5 in royalties for each HTC device running Android, although this figure has not been confirmed by either of the companies. Microsoft is reported to be looking for US$7.50–US$12.50 per device from other licensees. According to market watcher Asymco, with HTC shipping 30 million Android devices to date, this would mean that Microsoft has made US$150 million from the deal – more than the US$30 million it suggests has been generated by its own Windows Phone platform. The company moots that “Google’s Android seems the best thing that could have happened to Microsoft’s mobile efforts, ever.”