<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Taiwanese electronics manufacturer HTC has confirmed its plan to further downsize the company.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This will be the third major lay-off round that the company has seen, Taiwanese news outlet Liberty Times </span><a href="https://ec.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/3010645"><span style="font-weight: 400;">reported</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, following a cut of </span><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/13/stayin-alive/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">2,250 employees</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in 2015 and </span><a href="https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/02/technology/htc-layoffs/index.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">another 1,500</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in July 2018. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Additionally, in Jan 2018, HTC lost around 2,000 of its engineers to Google in a </span><a href="https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/21/technology/htc-google-smartphone-deal/index.html?iid=EL"><span style="font-weight: 400;">$1.1 billion deal</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. At its peak in 2013, HTC boasted around </span><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/02/htc-is-gone/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">19,000 employees</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, which marks a sharp contrast to its current headcount of 3,000 people. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">HTC claims that its latest workforce adjustment will allow the company to focus on innovation efforts targeting selected products, including its blockchain-backed EXODUS smartphones. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Launched in May 2018 at an initial retail price of 0.15 BTC, </span><a href="https://www.htcexodus.com/eu/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">EXODUS</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> allows users to access decentralized exchanges on their device and secure their assets with a hardware wallet. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This October, HTC rolled out </span><a href="https://www.htcexodus.com/us/exodus1/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Exodus 1</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, a cheaper version of its previous product with the capacity to run a full bitcoin node. The following month, the company </span><a href="https://www.binance.com/en/blog/400965376721776640/HTC-and-Binance-Announce-Limited-Edition-EXODUS-1-Smartphone-with-Builtin-Binance-Chain-and-DEX-Support"><span style="font-weight: 400;">announced</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> its plan to release a limited edition version of its EXODUS 1 phones which will integrate Binance Chain with the device’s native wallet app. </span></p>