Google Inc. on Tuesday completed its $12.5 billion acquisition of phone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and said it has appointed a Google executive as the new CEO of the business.
Dennis Woodside, previously president of Google's Americas region, is Motorola's new CEO. Departing CEO Sanjay Jha will help ensure a smooth transition, Google announced.
It is Googles's largest acquisition ever, and pushes the company deeper into cell phones. Google is already a formidable force in mobile computing thanks to its Android software, the chief challenger to Apple Inc. and its iPhones.
At the same time, the acquisition is largely a defensive one. Google needs Motorola's trove of 17,000 cell phone patents to defend Android phones against lawsuits by Apple, which accuses them of copying iPhone features.
Google and Motorola announced the deal last summer, expecting it would close late last year or early this year. But approval from Chinese regulators was slow in coming.
On Saturday, China approved the deal on the condition that Google Inc.'s Android software would remain free for other phone makers for at least five years. Regulators in the U.S. and Europe cleared the deal three months ago.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
