Google will lay off another 1,200 Motorola Mobility employees, or 10% of the company’s remaining workforce. The cuts will impact workers in the United States, China and India. They are in addition to the 4,000 cuts announced last August after Google completed its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility.
Google says its handset unit is losing money and operating in markets where it is not competitive, according to an email obtained by The Wall Street Journal. The shrinking workforce at Motorola Mobility is in stark contrast to the growth at Google’s Mountain View headquarters, where the company is hiring aggressively.
So far, Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility has not produced a Google-branded smartphone or tablet. The Nexus 4 smartphone and Nexus 7 tablet are made by LG. Meanwhile Motorola has introduced a new Razr line of smartphones, but these have not been huge sellers.
Some analysts have surmised that Google’s primary motivation in buying Motorola Mobility was to obtain the company’s patents and not to manufacture smartphones. Google needs a robust patent portfolio to defend its Android operating system against Apple’s patent infringement lawsuits.
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