Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc.

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Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Communications equipment
Predecessor(s)	Motorola, Inc.
Founded	January 4, 2011
Headquarters	Libertyville, Illinois, U.S.
Key people	Dennis Woodside (Chairman and CEO)
Products	Mobile phones, Smartphones, Tablets, Cable modems, Set-top boxes,
Revenue	US$ 13.064 billion (2011)[1]
Operating income	US$ -145 million (2011)[1]
Net income	US$ -249 million (2011)[1]
Total assets	US$ 9.730 billion (2011)[1]
Total equity	US$ 5.088 billion (2011)[1]
Owner(s)	Google
Employees	20,500 (2011)[1]
Website	www.motorola.com/mobility

Motorola Mobility, Inc. is an American telecommunications equipment corporation owned by Google and headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Libertyville, Illinois. Motorola's networks division (called the Personal Communication Section (PCS), prior to 2004) pioneered the flip phone with the StarTAC in the mid-1990s. By the turn of the 21st century, it produced another innovative hit product, the (original) RAZR, a very thin flip phone. Motorola had a commanding lead in the analog cellphone market, but it was slow to embrace digital technology. This allowed global rivals such as Nokia and Samsung Electronics to bypass it; it essentially failed to enter the global smartphone market until the 2010s.

Motorola continued to experience severe problems with its cellphone/handset division in the latter-2000s, recording a record $1.2 billion loss in Q4 2007.^[2] Its global competitiveness continued to decline: from 18.4% market share in 2007, to 9.7% by 2008. By 2010, Motorola's global market share had dropped to seventh place, leading to speculation of bankruptcy of the company.^[3]

On August 15, 2011, Google Inc. announced that it had agreed to acquire the company^[4] for US$12.5 billion.^[5] The acquisition included a sizeable portfolio of patents owned by Motorola.^[6] On February 13, 2012 Google received final approval from the United States Department of Justice and the European Union.^[7] On 19th May 2012, the People's Republic of China approved the merger also for $12.5 billion, making it the last major trading commission to approve the merger. The merger was completed on the 22 May 2012.^[8]

History[link]

Motorola Mobility was formerly known as the Mobile Devices division of Motorola until it was spun off as a separate entity in January 2011. Motorola Mobility consists of the Mobile Devices business which produces smartphones and the Home business which produces set-top boxes, end-to-end video solutions, and cable modems.^[9]

Resurgence[link]

In 2002–2003, Motorola's Mobile Devices department reinvented itself. Three areas of significant improvement were user friendliness, design and brand. Motorola started paying more attention to the user experience, and models such as the v300, v400 and v600 (called the triplets) were among the devices that were easy to use. In addition to ease of use, Motorola also stressed design and brand image. The result of the focus in these aspects led to the RAZR V3.

• 

  Motorola RAZR V3.
  Product of 2003

• 

  Motorola RIZR Z8 Smart Phone, based on UIQ OS and a slide kick platform.
  Product of 2007

• 

  Motorola Droid. Second Android phone manufactured by Motorola (The first was the Motorola Cliq).
  Product of 2009

• 

  Motorola Milestone XT720 unboxing.
  Product of 2010

RAZR[link]

In 2004, Motorola released the RAZR V3. Motorola released other phones based on the RAZR design. These include the PEBL U6, SLVR L6, SLVR L7 (more expensive variant of SLVR L6), RAZR V3c (CDMA), RAZR V3i (with upgraded camera and appearance), V3x (supports 3G technology and has a 2 MP camera), RAZR V3xx (supports 3.5G technology) and RAZR maxx V6 (supports 3.5G technology and has a 2 MP camera) announced on July 2006. Motorola capitalized on the RAZR too long and it was also slow adopting 3G. The company lost market share to Samsung and LG Electronics.^[10][11] By 2007, without new cellphones that carriers wanted to offer, Motorola sold tens of millions of RAZRs and their offshoots by slashing prices, causing margins to collapse in the process.^[12] Under Zander, Ron Garriques who was responsible for the successful RAZR departed for Dell Inc., while Stu Reed failed to turn around the struggling mobile handset division.^[11]

Android range[link]

Motorola shifted its Operating systems from their proprietary software to Google's Android operating system and in October 2009, Motorola announced a forthcoming smartphone named "Droid" that launched on the Verizon network on November 6, 2009.^[13] "Droid" was a major success for Motorola Mobile Devices.^[14] It received the prestigious "Time Gadget of the Year" award in 2009.^[15] In 2010, Motorola launched "Droid X" and "Droid 2". Droid X was again a major success, which has helped Motorola to regain much of its market share in the US.^[16]

Spinoff[link]

The division began trading as a separate independent company on January 4, 2011.^[9]

Atrix 4G, Droid Bionic, XOOM, & Droid RAZR[link]

On January 5, 2011, Motorola Mobility announced that the Atrix 4G and the Droid Bionic were headed to AT&T and Verizon (respectively), with expected release dates in Q1 of 2011. The Atrix was released on February 22 as the world's first phone with both a Dual-Core Processor and 1GB of RAM.^[17] The phone also had optional peripherals such as a Multimedia Dock and a Laptop Dock which launched a Webtop UI.^[18] On February 24, two days after the release of Atrix, the company released Motorola Xoom, the world's first Android 3.0 tablet,^[19] and followed it up shortly afterwards with an update to make it the world's first Android 3.1 tablet.^[20] In the fourth quarter of 2011, Motorola unveiled the Droid RAZR, the worlds thinnest 4G LTE smartphone at that time with just 7.1mm of thickness. The Droid Razr featured Kevlar backing, the same used in bulletproof vests and a Gorilla Glass face-plate.

Acquisition by Google[link]

On August 15, 2011, Google announced that it would acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion,^[21][22] subject to approval from regulators in the United States and Europe. In a post on Google's blog, Google Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, Larry Page, revealed that Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility is a strategic move to strengthen Google's patent portfolio.

Google's Android operating system has recently come under fire in an industry-wide patent battle,^[23] in which Android manufacturers HTC, Motorola, and Samsung have been sued for alleged patent infringement,^[4] by Microsoft, Oracle and Apple.^[24] The Motorola Mobility acquisition is considered a means of protecting the viability of Android. Google has stated that it will run Motorola as an independent company.^[25] On November 17, 2011, Motorola announced that its shareholders voted in favor of the company's acquisition by Google Inc. for $12.5 billion, receiving approval from the United States Department of Justice and the EU on February 13, 2012.^[7] The deal received subsequent approval from Chinese authorities and was completed on May 22, 2012.^[26] Alongside the completion of the acquisition, Motorola Mobility's CEO, Sanjay Jha, was replaced by Dennis Woodside, formerly a Google Senior Vice President.^[27]

Competitors[link]

• Nokia
• HTC
• Samsung Electronics
• LG Electronics
• Sony Mobile
• Apple

See also[link]

• iDEN
• WiDEN
• List of Motorola products
• Motorola Solutions

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website