Google thinks it’s a good idea to acquire Motorola, but Wall Street is not so sure. A report from the Wall Street Journal suggests analysts and investors are getting nervous about the acquisition; so skittish that Google’s stocks slid 3% on Monday.
The biggest concern is the effect Motorola will have on Google and its Android mobile OS. Motorola announced less than stellar quarterly earnings last week and confirmed it only shipped 5.3 million smartphones in the holiday quarter. At the same time Motorola was announcing its earnings, Samsung released quarterly estimates that suggest it shipped a staggering 35 million phones.
With numbers like that, it’s not hard to understand why analysts have such scathing assessments of the Motorola deal. An excellent example is Jim Friedland of Cowen & Company who recently said,
“We continue to believe that the acquisition of the MMI [Motorola Mobility] patents, if approved, is the ‘least bad’ way to counter Apple’s and Microsoft’s attempts to slow down Android’s growth. Unfortunately, the patents are saddled with MMI’s poorly performing handset business.”
Wall Street’s reaction won’t stop the deal from being approved , but it does cast a shadow on the struggling Motorola. What company would want to be known as the monkey on Google’s back?
[WSJ]