Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Appoints Barclays To Divest Motorola Mobility’s unit

Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) has hired Barclays Plc as its advisor in its quest to sell a Motorola Mobility unit that sells set-top boxes and other equipment to cable television providers, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

Motorola Mobility’s Home Business unit might fetch about $2 billion and the sale is in the very early stages, it reported citing a source. .

Google is now shifting its focus towards high-end smartphones carrying its battle with Apple right into the latter’s home turf and it plans to use Motorola Mobility for this purpose.

Earlier this month Google announced it would reduce Motorola staff by 4000 and close about a third of its 90 facilities as part of a plan to restore the hardware firm’s leadership in the mobile market.

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Google completed the $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility in May in its biggest takeover, after it lost out on an auction of Nortel Networks Corp patents to a group that included Apple, Microsoft and Research in Motion.

Light Reading Cable had reported on Aug. 6 that Google was considering a sale of the Home Business unit. Motorola tried to sell the unit in 2009 for more than $4 billion, people close to the situation said at the time.

Many of Motorola’s handsets run on Google’s Android operating software. Google-powered devices accounted for 56 percent of global sales in the first three months of the year, compared with 23 percent for Apple’s iPhone, according to Gartner Inc.

Google shares are down 0.61% to $683.63 in kid day session on Thursday.

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