Rapper Dr Dre and music producer Jimmy Iovine have revealed that they want to bring fresh investors into the business to grow the fashionable brand of headphones and speakers.
The news comes as HTC, Taiwan’s largest smartphone maker, struggles with falling sales amid a highly competitive market.
HTC bought a 50.1pc stake in Beats in August 2011 for £192m, placing the Beats audio system into ints phone to try and improve its position in the US.
HTC was the top seller of Android-based smartphones in the US in 2010, with a market share of 11.8pc, but lost the top spot to Samsung in 2012.
The collaboration with Beats failed to halt HTC’s decline and it sold half its stake back to Dr Dre and Mr Iovine last year at a $5m loss.
"I haven’t seen much synergy from the cooperation," BNP Paribas analyst Laura Chen told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). "Beats has an advanced audio system and design, but it turned out having that in HTC phones didn’t help sales in a meaningful way."
Last month, HTC shares slumped to their lowest level in eight years after it predicted an eighth straight fall in quarterly sales. It sees revenues of NT$60bn (£1.3bn) in the three months to the end of September, well short of analyst expectations of NT$72.7bn. The company may also post a loss.
In contrast, Beats, whose headphones can sell for hundreds of pounds each, saw revenues rise to around $1bn last year from less than $200m in 2010, WSJ reported.
It currently holds 59pc of the US market for premium headphones, according to NPD Group.
