Motorola Mobility

About Motorola Mobility

Motorola Mobility was acquired by Google in May 2012 for 12.5 billion. Google wanted Motorolas patent portfolio to defend Android. Google sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo in January 2014 for 2.91 billion, taking a massive loss. Google retained most of the patents. Motorola had invented the mobile phone and dominated the industry in the 1990s and 2000s. The Razr was the most popular phone of its era. Motorola split into two companies in 2011: Motorola Mobility for consumer devices and Motorola Solutions for enterprise. The Google experiment with Motorola was brief and unsuccessful, producing few notable products. Lenovo struggled to turn Motorola profitable. The case illustrates how even dominant technology companies can fail to adapt.