HTC Paying Apple $6 to $8 Per Phone? That’s Crazy Talk.

Rumors that Apple’s recent settlement with HTC allows it to collect between $6 and $8 in licensing fees for each smartphone the Taiwanese company ships in 2013 are just that — rumors. Baseless, too, according to HTC CEO Peter Chou, who went out of his way today to dismiss them at a product launch in Tokyo.

“I think that these estimates are baseless and very, very wrong,” Chou said. “It is a outrageous number.”

How outrageous? Well, obviously, Chou wouldn’t say. “I’m not going to comment anything on a specific number,” he said. “I believe we have a very, very happy settlement and a good ending.”

So there you go. That claim of $6 to $8 is ludicrous, but since details of the settlement are confidential, it’s impossible to verify how far off that estimate is. Unless, of course, Samsung succeeds in forcing Apple to provide it with a copy of the settlement, which the company believes is material to its own legal battle with the iPhone maker. Then we’ll see just how outrageous those numbers are.