Amount thought to be lower than Apple asked for

HTC will likely be paying Apple a net licensing fee of about $6 to $8 per phone, says Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu. The claim is based on talk with industry sources. "This is apparently lower than the range AAPL initially proposed," Wu writes in an investor memo. "But to put this in context, this compares to press reports indicated HTC pays [Microsoft] $5 per phone running Android."

Over the weekend Apple made a surprise announcement revealing a global settlement with HTC, including a 10-year licensing deal between the two parties. The exact terms of the licensing agreement haven't been revealed; if the $6-8 estimate is right however, it could mean that Apple will pull in between $180 million and $280 million in 2013, assuming HTC sells a forecast 30 to 35 million phones.

Wu argues that the settlement could serve as a template for Apple's ongoing conflicts with Samsung and Motorola, perhaps serving to speed up out-of-court resolutions in those cases. Apple CEO Tim Cook has expressed more of a willingness to settle than his predecessor, Steve Jobs, who infamously said he was willing to go to "thermonuclear war" over phones based on Google's Android platform.

by MacNN Staff