Motorola Mobility is a division of Lenovo Group that develops mobile devices. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, United States, the company was formed on January 4, 2011 by the split of Motorola Inc. into two separate companies; Motorola Mobility took on the company's consumer-oriented product lines, including its mobile phone business and its cable modems and set-top boxes for digital cable and satellite television services, while Motorola Solutions retained the company's enterprise-oriented product lines.
The company primarily manufactures smartphones and other mobile devices running the Android operating system developed by Google Inc.; in August 2011, only several months after the split, Google acquired Motorola Mobility for US$12.5 billion. Google's stated intent for the purchase was to gain control of Motorola Mobility's portfolio of patents, so it could adequately protect other Android vendors from lawsuits. The deal closed in May 2012, after which it also sold its cable modem and set-top box business to Arris Group. Under Google ownership, Motorola Mobility increased its focus on the entry-level smartphone market, introduced one of the first Android Wear smartwatches, and also began development on Project Ara, a platform for modular smartphones with interchangeable components.