Last year HTC invested a fairly sizable chunk of change into Beats Electronics, a move that has enabled the manufacturer to include Beats Audio support in its hardware and even pack in Beats headphones with some devices, like the Rezound. It doesn't sound like HTC will be doing much more of the latter, though, as Martin Fichter, an HTC product executive, recently told CNET that "an accessory like the headphone doesn't factor in when someone is buying a smartphone," adding that customers interested in a pair of Beats will likely purchase them separately. Fichter wouldn't go so far as to say that HTC will never again pack headphones in with its devices, but he did say that it's not something that the company expects to do in the near future.
HTC has included Beats Audio tech in several of its smartphones, including the One X and EVO 4G LTE, and it looks like that's a trend that'll continue for some time. It's kind of a bummer that we're unlikely to see Beats headphones included with any new HTC handsets since they were a nice addition for customers that decided to buy a phone like the Rezound, especially since some devices don't come with any headphones at all anymore. Still, the Beats 'phones probably weren't cheap to include, so it's tough to fault HTC too much for its decision. What do you all make of Fichter's statement about headphones factoring into a phone buying decision? Would the inclusion of Beats headphones with an HTC handset make you more interested in that device?
