When (and why) did Google sell Motorola?

Google was already a huge company when it acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in 2012. Founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin as a research project at Stanford, Google quickly grew from a dorm room experiment to a real company with an office, its first search engine, and, most importantly, financial backing.

In the 2000s, the company grew into a huge web entity thanks to the success of products such as Search Ads, Gmail, Maps, YouTube (acquired in 2006), and Android. Google acquired Android Inc. in 2005 to expand into mobile and protect its search business as smartphones became the primary gateway to the Internet. The first public release of the Android mobile operating system occurred in 2008, and by 2012, when it acquired Motorola Mobility, Android was already at the heart of Google’s mobile strategy.

The setup was short-lived, however, as just two years later, with Motorola Mobility’s hardware unit suffering losses, Google decided to sell it while retaining other parts of the company. Chinese company Lenovo bought Motorola Mobility for $2.91 billion in 2014 in a deal that allowed Google to retain the vast majority of patents. Let’s take a look at the big picture, including why Google wanted to keep these patents and who owns Motorola Mobility today.

You may be surprised to know that Motorola has been around for a long time. Very long time. The company began life in Chicago in 1928 as Galvin Manufacturing Corporation before adopting the name Motorola in 1947. It began as a manufacturer of radio and communications equipment, then expanded into related technology areas, including mobile phones and network infrastructure.

A year before Google arrived in 2012, Motorola split into two companies – Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions – dividing its businesses between consumer mobile devices and communications equipment, respectively. It was the Mobility unit that piqued Google’s interest because it offered a path to move further into mobile hardware. It was also an opportunity to strengthen Android thanks to Motorola’s know-how and, ultimately, to stimulate innovation. Google also concluded that Motorola’s large number of technology patents could help better protect Android from patent-related lawsuits from competitors like Apple and Microsoft, whose lawsuits against Google and Android device makers intensified in the 2010s. Motorola was also able to use these patents in lawsuits it filed itself, such as in a 2010 case against Apple over 18 patents covering features such as location services, antenna design, email transmission, touch screen movements and 3G wireless technology.

When Google sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo in 2014, Lenovo acquired the phones business, the Motorola Mobility brand and brand portfolio, and more than 2,000 patent assets. Google, meanwhile, kept about 15,000 of the remaining patents and applications, although Lenovo was able to use them as part of the deal. As of 2026, Motorola Mobility still exists within Lenovo as its own smartphone division. So how are you?

Motorola Mobility had a rocky start with Lenovo. In 2016, two years after Lenovo acquired Motorola for nearly $3 billion, the Chinese firm revealed that attempts to integrate the company into its business “did not meet expectations,” explaining that Motorola’s mobile product sales fell 85% in its most recent quarter, compared to the same period a year earlier. Lenovo also said the transition to the new Moto G in North America went poorly, in part because the phone launched later than expected.

But Lenovo wasn’t about to abandon Motorola. After assessing the difficult situation in 2016, the company worked to increase sales in regions such as Latin America, India, Japan, the Middle East and North America, in part by shifting from carrier sales to unlocked phones. It also looked to continue offering handsets at different levels, from budget Moto G phones to high-end Edge models to foldables like the Razr that include the high-end Razr Fold. With planning and patience, Lenovo managed to turn things around and in the 2024/25 financial year announced that its smartphone revenues reached its highest level since the Motorola acquisition, with Motorola’s business helping to drive 27% year-on-year growth.

Longtime Motorola Mobility executive Sudhir Chadaga struck a confident note in a 2025 interview in which he stated his goal of doubling Motorola Mobility’s business “in three to four years.” Motorola Mobility’s journey, including its time at Google, has been rocky, but a renewed strategy appears to have paid off, with the company now appearing to be on firmer footing.