Motorola Mobility LLC, marketed and commonly known as Motorola (stylized in all-lowercase as motorola), is an American consumer electronics manufacturer primarily producing smartphones running Android software and other wearable accessories. Motorola Mobility is headquartered at Merchandise Mart in Chicago, Illinois, which houses all research and development and where its products are designed (with the exception of its tablets). The company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese company Lenovo since 2014, which handles device manufacturing and supply chain. Motorola Mobility was formed on January 4, 2011 after a split of the original Motorola Inc., founded in 1928, 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 the enterprise and radio communication division continues as Motorola Solutions, a legal successor of the original company. 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. Shortly after the purchase, Google sold Motorola Mobility's cable modem and set-top box business to Arris Group, and products increasingly focused on entry-level smartphones. Under the ATAP division, Google also began development on Project Ara. In October 2014, Google sold Motorola Mobility for $2.91 billion to Lenovo, which excluded ATAP and most of the patents. Lenovo's existing smartphone division was subsumed by Motorola Mobility. The company currently sells a range of smartphones, mainly consisting of the high-end Edge series, the Razr series of foldables, the Moto G series, as well as a number of other series and products depending on region, all running Android with an interface called "Hello UI". As of 2025, its flagship device is the Motorola Razr 60 Ultra.
History
On January 4, 2011, Motorola, Inc. was split into two publicly traded companies; Motorola Solutions took on the company's enterprise-oriented business units, while the remaining mostly consumer divisions were taken on by Motorola Mobility. The original company had been a pioneer in the development of cellular phones. After the major success of RAZR V3, the company was unable to keep up and quickly lost market share to rivals such as Nokia, Apple, and Samsung, leading to major financial losses that culminated in the company's split. Legally, the split was structured so that Motorola Inc. changed its name to Motorola Solutions and spun off Motorola Mobility as a new publicly traded company.
2011–2012: Independent
Motorola Mobility originally consisted of the mobile devices business, which produced smartphones, mobile accessories including Bluetooth headphones, and the home business, which produced set-top boxes, end-to-end video solutions, cordless phones, and cable modems. In the run up to the company's formation, Motorola Defy, Droid Pro, Droid 2 (global) and Bravo were among the handsets introduced. At the 2011 Consumer Electronic Show, Motorola Mobility introduced the Motorola Atrix 4G, Droid Bionic and Cliq 2 handsets, as well as the Motorola Xoom tablet. At Mobile World Congress the company also announced the Motorola Gleam flip phone and Motorola Pro for GSM networks. In Q1 2011, the company reported revenues of $3 billion (up 22% from a year prior) and sales of 9.3 million mobile devices, including 4.1 million smartphones. In June 2011, the company launched their third generation Droid, Droid 3. They also announced other products during this time including the Motorola Photon 4G and the Motorola Wilder feature phone. On October 18, 2011, Motorola Mobility announced the Droid Razr smartphone, bringing back the Razr brand that had been very popular as the Razr V3 in the 2000s.
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