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 per cent on Tuesday, while HTC rose 3.1 per cent, 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.