Google Will Sell Motorola To Lenovo For Close To $3 Billion

Google announced Wednesday it signed a deal to sell its struggling smartphone unit Motorola to Chinese tech giant Lenovo for $2.91 billion.

"Lenovo has the expertise and track record to scale Motorola Mobility into a major player within the Android ecosystem," Google chief executive Larry Page said in a joint statement announcing the deal.

Lenovo chairman and chief executive Yang Yuanqingof said the acquisition “will immediately make Lenovo a strong global competitor in smartphones. We will immediately have the opportunity to become a strong global player in the fast-growing mobile space.”

The move comes after Google’s biggest-ever takeover at $12.5 billion, announced in 2011 and finalized in 2012.

Even under Google, Motorola has failed to gain traction in a rapidly evolving smartphone market now dominated by South Korea’s Samsung and US-based Apple.

While Google would be taking a loss on the sale, it did spin off the Motorola Home division for $2.3 billion in 2012 and sold off some of its manufacturing facilities.

Some analysts said Google’s main interest in Motorola would be the portfolio of 17,000 patents, the majority of which will be kept by the California group.

"Google got wahat they wanted and needed from Moto — they got patents, engineering talent and mobile market device insight," said technology analyst Jack Gold.

"They don’t need to be in the device business… This is a win for Google and a win for Lenovo in my opinion."