19 months after acquiring it, Google today has announced that it has agreed to sell off Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for USD 2.91 billion (RM 9.71 billion). While the amount looks pretty big, it is far cry from the amount that Google originally paid to acquire it in 2012 at USD 12.5 billion (RM 41.73 billion).
Even though Google has agreed to offload Motorola Mobility to Lenovo, the company will still retain majority of Motorola’s patent portfolio. Nevertheless, Lenovo will still receive license to those patents in addition to 2,000 patent assets together with Motorola Mobility’s brand and trademark portfolio. Not to forget, Motorola Mobility’s future product roadmap as well.
This move came just one week after Lenovo agreed to acquire IBM’s x86 server business for an almost similar amount of money at USD 2.3 billion (RM 7.70 billion). Since Lenovo’s acquisition over Motorola Mobility will only be done once it goes through the usual procedures and approved by authorities, business is as usual at the time being for all related parties.
All in all, it is going to be interesting to see if Lenovo is able to replicate its success with IBM’s Think brand for Motorola Mobility.
[Source: Google – 1,2; Motorola; Lenovo]
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