There are several ‘confirmed reports’ circulating across the tech press right now that Lenovo is set to buy Motorola Mobility from Google for a price somewhere between $2-3 billion. This sale would come just a few short years after Google bought Motorola for $12.5 billion.
While both Reuters and China Daily are reporting that the acquisition could be officially announced within hours, details of the deal are scarce, save one: apparently the $3 billion sale would not include Motorola’s patents. If you’ll recall, patents were the stated reason that Google originally purchased the hardware manufacturer.
Obviously, we’ll be keeping tabs on this story as it develops, but hopefully Motorola can maintain its newfound identity even as part of Lenovo. Despite a revenue drop of $1.78 billion in 2013, two of the company’s smartphones made the top of our best of the year list.
Lenovo was reportedly interested in purchasing BlackBerry last year, but the idea was shot down by the Canadian government on security grounds. No word whether similar issue will be taken by the U.S. government.
Let us know in the comments how you feel about the potential deal.
UPDATE: It’s official. The purchase price is approximately US $2.91 billion — a mix of cash and Lenovo stock — and Lenovo will get 2,000 unknown Moto patents, the MOTOROLA brand, Motorola Mobility, and Motorola’s portfolio of handsets including its future product roadmap. Google will keep most of the Motorola patent portfolio, but Lenovo will receive a license for access.
Larry Page, CEO, Google stated “Lenovo has the expertise and track record to scale Motorola Mobility into a major player within the Android ecosystem. This move will enable Google to devote our energy to driving innovation across the Android ecosystem, for the benefit of smartphone users everywhere.”
“As part of Lenovo, Motorola Mobility will have a rapid path to achieving our goal of reaching the next 100 million people with the mobile Internet. With the recent launches of Moto X and Moto G, we have tremendous momentum right now and Lenovo’s hardware expertise and global reach will only help to accelerate this,” said Dennis Woodside, CEO, Motorola Mobility.
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