Motorola

Motorola Mobility LLC, marketed as Motorola, is an American consumer electronics manufacturer primarily producing smartphones and other mobile devices running Android. Headquartered at Merchandise Mart in Chicago, Illinois, it is a subsidiary of the Chinese multinational technology company Lenovo.

Motorola Mobility was formed on January 4, 2011, after a split of Motorola, Inc. into two separate companies, with Motorola Mobility assuming the company’s consumer-oriented product lines (including its mobile phone business, as well as its cable modems and pay television set-top boxes), while Motorola Solutions assumed the company’s enterprise-oriented product lines.

In May 2012 Google acquired Motorola Mobility for US$12.5 billion; the main intent of the purchase was to gain Motorola Mobility’s patent portfolio, in order to protect other Android vendors from litigation. Under Google, Motorola Mobility increased its focus on the entry-level smartphone market, and under the Google ATAP division, began development on Project Ara—a platform for modular smartphones with interchangeable components. Shortly after the purchase, Google sold Motorola Mobility’s cable modem and set-top box business to Arris Group.

Google’s ownership of the company was short-lived. In January 2014, Google announced that it would sell Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for $6.91 billion. The sale, which excluded ATAP and all but 2,000 of Motorola Mobility’s patents, was completed on 30 October 2014. Lenovo disclosed an intent to use Motorola Mobility as a way to expand into the United States smartphone market. In August 2015, Lenovo’s existing smartphone division was subsumed by Motorola Mobility.