Google Inc. agreed to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for about $12.5 billion, a move that would make Google more competitive in the mobile-computing market.
“The combination of Google and Motorola will not only supercharge Android, but will also enhance competition and offer consumers accelerating innovation, greater choice, and wonderful user experiences,” Google CEO Larry Page wrote in a post on the company’s official blog.
Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business that will remain a licensee of Android. It was not clear how the deal will affect Google’s relationship with other Android partners, specifically HTC Corp., LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. In its press release, Google said things wouldn’t be different.
“Our vision for Android is unchanged, and Google remains firmly committed to Android as an open platform and a vibrant open source community,” said Andy Rubin, Google’s senior vice president of mobile at Google. “We will continue to work with all of our valued Android partners to develop and distribute innovative Android-powered devices.”
Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha claims his company owns over 17,000 patents worldwide.
Google’s Android operating system is currently the most widely used mobile operating system in the United States, and nears the top spot for the highest mobile os in the world. There have been over 150 million Android activations to date, with over 550,000 new device activations occurring every day, according to Page’s blog post. Those numbers occur across “39 manufacturers and 231 carriers in 123 countries,” Page says.