Peter Chou (周永明), head of smartphone vendor HTC Corp’s (宏達電) Future Development Lab, has been appointed executive director of Hong Kong-listed Digital Domain Holdings Ltd (數字王國).
Digital Domain is engaged in a wide range of businesses, including media entertainment, digital visual special effects, coproduction of movies, property investment and development and trading.
On its Web site, Digital Domain states that it has delivered innovative visuals for more than 100 movies, including Iron Man 3, the Transformers series and Titanic.
The appointment by Digital Domain has stirred up speculation that Chou, 59, is leaving HTC, but the smartphone vendor said that he still works for HTC and by taking up the director position at Digital Domain, he aims to help HTC develop its virtual-reality (VR) business.
VIRTUAL REALITY
HTC is gearing up to grasp a share in the VR headset business by launching the Vive headset, hoping that this will help the company improve its bottom line at a time when the Taiwanese firm is faced with escalating competition in the global smartphone market.
Digital Domain said that Chou is scheduled to begin his new job tomorrow, and he is to hold on to the executive director position until the next general meeting, when he is to retire and become eligible for re-election at the meeting.
In March, Chou stepped down as the CEO of HTC, but shifted his position to head the smartphone brand’s Future Development Lab to help the company identify growth opportunities.
HTC cofounder and chairwoman Cher Wang (王雪紅) assumed the CEO position.
HTC said that Chou’s new post with Digital Domain is expected to allow HTC to gain a better understanding of the development of the VR business, as the Taiwanese firm is determined to seek more business cooperation opportunities in this field.
HTC said that so far, it has more than 100 business partners in the sector.
In the first half of this year, HTC incurred NT$9.7 in loss per share, and the company has forecast that it will post an additional NT$5.85 to NT$5.51 in net loss per share this quarter.
On Friday, shares of HTC closed up by 0.53 percent to reach NT$47.1 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
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