The New York Times is reporting that Google will sell its Mobility unit to Lenovo for $3 billion. Details are thin, but the Times says a deal should be announced shortly.


For a refresher, Google bought Motorola Mobility back in 2011 for $12.5 billion. Motorola Mobility is the part of Motorola that includes handset technology that was spun off. Google bought it and rebranded it as Motorola: a Google company.

Now, if this if this actually happens, that would be a massive surprise. Honestly, massive surprise is probably an understatement. It goes without saying that the Times is a very reliable source. However, it makes some sense if Google was only in the whole deal for the patents, which it would be keeping in the event of a sale. But it really looked like Motorola handsets would play a big role in Google's future. In any case, we're reaching out to Google and we'll update if we hear anything else. [NYT]


Update: Lenovo is hosting a video press conference here at 5:30 EST, which is a pretty strong indication that this crazy rumor is actually true. Whoa.

Update 2: The release just went out—Google is actually selling Motorola.