After months of speculation, the search giant Google has finally acquired Motorola Mobility at a price of US$40 per share bringing the total acquisition to US$12.5 billion.
Google CEO, Larry Page said: “I’m happy to announce the deal has closed. Motorola is a great American tech company, with a track record of over 80 years of innovation. It’s a great time to be in the mobile business, and I’m confident that the team at Motorola will be creating the next generation of mobile devices that will improve lives for years to come.”
This new acquisition is expected to see the Android platform, which Google acquired in 2005 for US$50 million, used in all the Motorola devices.
Dennis Woodside, the new CEO of Motorola Mobility, said: “Motorola literally invented the entire mobile industry with the first-ever commercial cell phone in 1983. Thirty years later, mobile devices are at the centre of the computing revolution.”
In an interview last year with Africa Telecoms Online, a South African online magazine, Motorola Mobility’s Marketing Director Mahmoud Sayed Ahmed exuded confidence on the impact of Motorola in Africa saying: “while it is true that low-end feature phones dominate in Africa, the trend viewed globally, in which users migrate from feature to smartphone, is being adopted in Africa.”
“And this is where Motorola has chosen to be at present, with devices that operate solely on the Android platform,” he explained.
Sayed added that with the global growth around Android smart-phones, Motorola had been actively engaged in rolling out Android devices that address various segments of the market, including entry-level smartphones for consumers with limited budgets, or new entrants into the smart-phone space.
Google had last year August announced its intentions to acquire Motorolla Mobility for US$12.5 billion. Earlier this year, regulators in both the U.S. and the European Union approved the acquisition. Google was however forced to wait for China’s approval until last weekend.
Since its inception, Google has acquired over 110 companies including YouTube, Slide.com, AdMob and DoubleClick.
