Google has warned it could make further job cuts to its Motorola Mobility team, following 4,000 layoffs already made after its purchase of the phone maker last year.
“Motorola continues to evaluate its plans and further restructuring actions may occur, which may cause Google to incur additional restructuring charges, some of which may be significant,” Google said in a filing with the SEC.
The search giant provided details on how much the layoffs will cost. That includes $300 million (£185 million) in severance-related charges, and $90 million (£56 million) in facility and market exit charges. Much of that will be recognised in the third quarter of 2012, but a portion will roll into 2013, Google said.
A company spokeswoman said that the filing was made “to provide updated information around Motorola Mobility’s cost reductions that were announced earlier this summer,” but provided no further details about additional costs or more job cuts.
In July, Google reported a jump in revenue since its Motorola acquisition was finalised – Google earned $12.21 billion (£7.5 billion) in the last quarter, up 35 per cent from the same time last year. Motorola’s earnings reached $1.25 billion (£772 million).
The $12.5 billion (£7.7 billion) acquisition was cleared in late May, adding 20,293 employees and a mobile device hardware business to Google’s already-successful Android operating system.
A month after the deal closed, the Federal Trade Commission reportedly began investigating Google over patent abuse charges related to Motorola, which was accused of not making good faith efforts to license its technology to rivals like Apple and Microsoft.
Read the SEC filing in full here
