Google’s Motorola deal a boon for Asia

Google’s $12.5bn bid for Motorola Mobility is being seen as more of a boon than a blow for Asian smartphone makers, as executives and analysts play down the prospects of intensifying competition from a Google-owned Motorola.

Shares in Samsung Electronics, the world’s biggest producer of Android phones by sales, jumped 6.1 percent, while HTC rose 3.1 percent, on hopes that Google’s acquisition of Motorola’s patents could help protect Asian hardware makers in an escalating smartphone patent war. Korea’s Samsung and Taiwan’s HTC have become Asia’s two biggest phone makers by sales thanks to their Android-based phones. But both are embroiled in patent infringement lawsuits with Apple. One Samsung official said that while the Google-Motorola deal, which is expected to close at the end of the year, would not help in the lawsuits, but added “it can certainly protect us from future patent disputes.”