Google’s acquisition of Motorola may not have been as bad as people think

No amount of positive spin can hide the fact that Google’s acquisition of Motorola ended in failure. Almost as soon as soon as the news broke Wednesday that Lenovo was buying Motorola Mobility from Google for $2.9 billion, the rationalizations over the difference between the sale price and the nearly $13 billion Google paid in 2012 started to appear.

The deal universe is abuzz about how Google lost billions of dollars in selling Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. After all, the technology giant paid $12.5 billion for Motorola, so clearly it would take a $9.5 billion hit, right? Not so fast. Breaking down the admittedly messy math shows that Google didn’t exactly lose nearly $10 billion on the deal. Here are some back of the envelope calculations.