Google agrees to sell Motorola to Lenovo for $2.9B

Google said Wednesday it agreed to sell its Motorola business for almost $3 billion to China's Lenovo Group, a major strategy shift that gets the Internet search giant out of the business of manufacturing smartphones.

However, the deal stipulates Google gets to keep most of Motorola's patents. It will provide Lenovo a license for the portfolio and other intellectual property, according to USA Today.

Google paid $12.5 billion for Motorola in late 2011.

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