Official: Google sells Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion
Motorola being part of Google has been both incredibly interesting and somewhat disappointing. The products and ideas of Motorola have been fantastic from the Moto X, the Moto G, the Moto Maker customization suite, and the promise of Project Ara; but, consumer response has been low and devices haven't sold that well. The division has continued to post losses for Google, and now a report is saying that Google may sell the Motorola devices division to Lenovo for $3 billion.
Both Reuters and China Daily are reporting that Google has agreed to sell its Motorola hardware division to Lenovo. Reuters is reporting that the deal is worth "close to $3 billion", and China Daily is reporting that it is "at least $2 billion". China Daily also is saying that the deal would be for the Motorola hardware division plus "more than 10,000 mobile communication patents". If that number is correct, that could be huge, because When Google originally agreed to purchase Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in 2011, Google reportedly acquired 17,000 patents in the deal, and sources say that Google will sell about 2,000 of those patents to Lenovo and license the rest.
Even at that time, the assumption was that Google's aim was Motorola's patent portfolio, and Google was never expected to have much interest in the devices division of the company. Google has since kept Motorola separate from the main Google business ever since acquiring it, although it is being run by ex-Googler Dennis Woodside. Now it looks as though Google may have severely overestimated the value of Motorola's patent portfolio.
Lenovo is one of the larger handset manufacturers in China, but it has struggled to gain market share in the U.S., and this deal would certainly change that. Lenovo has been promising to make its push into the U.S. market by 2015. It was rumored to have been one of the companies bidding for BlackBerry last year, but that move was blocked by the Canadian government. Motorola would make for a much better acquisition, and a major shift in power for Lenovo.
Reuters is saying the announcement of this deal could come as soon as "Wednesday", though it is unclear if that means today or one week from now.
*Update* It appears that "Wednesday" meant today, because the deal has been made official. In a blog post, Larry Page has explained why Google has decided to make this deal, saying that essentially Google couldn't be "all-in" when it came to making handsets, and that is what is needed to be successful. Page says that Lenovo's experience will better serve Motorola, and it will allow Google to focus its efforts specifically on Android.
Possibly the best news in the announcement by Page is this sentence: "Lenovo intends to keep Motorola’s distinct brand identity." The specifics of the deal aren't clear outside of the $2.91 billion figure, but Page does say that "Google will retain the vast majority of Motorola’s patents, which we will continue to use to defend the entire Android ecosystem." So, at the very least it seems that part of the original report may not be accurate.
![[evil]](https://www.theautomotiveindia.com/forums/images/smilies/Evil.gif "Evil [evil]")
![[:D]](https://www.theautomotiveindia.com/forums/images/smilies/Big%20Smile.gif "Big Smile [:D]")
![[:)]](https://www.theautomotiveindia.com/forums/images/smilies/Smile.gif "Smile [:)]")
how much same as shown on flipkart, btw now they are out of stock for 16gb model.