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Lenovo says 'Hello Moto' to the tune of $3 billion
Thu, 30th Jan 2014
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Google is on the verge of selling its Motorola Mobility smartphone operations to Lenovo for around  USD $2.91 billion, if reports are to be believed.

The 'mobility unit' includes the handset technology that Google inherited when it bought Motorola for USD $12.5 billion in 2011.

Some see Google's imminent sale of Motorola as a concession of defeat, as it was by far Google's biggest acquisition to date - but Google wanted the Motorola patents to enhance it's mobile business, which many see as being successful.

Within the Google boardroom some shareholders have seen Motorola as a liability with the company continuing to hemorrhage money since it's latest flagship phone  the Moto X experienced poor sales.

This will be the second part of Motorola that Google has sold after US section Motorola Home to Arris for USD $2.35 billion.

Google will retain most of the patents it acquired as part of its original deal for Motorola, while granting Lenovo a license to use certain ones for its new handsets.

Google co-founder Larry Page posted on his blog; “We acquired Motorola in 2012 to help supercharge the Android ecosystem by creating a stronger patent portfolio for Google and great smartphones for users."

Lenovo seems to be on a major shopping spree after purchasing a large chunk of IBM's server based business. The move may come as the PC manufacturer is forced to look at other markets after the world PC market continues to decline.

Many think Lenovo will use its bulk purchasing power of components to help reduce the cost of any potential mobile handset division and try to recapture some of the market share that is currently dominated by apple and Samsung.

Will this move help Lenovo to grow? Tell us your thoughts below