Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing

Last January it was announced Google Inc. had agreed to sell off its subsidiary Motorola Motobility to China’s Lenovo Group Ltd. in a deal worth some $2.91 billion. Now, the acquisition has finally been completed and sees Lenovo suddenly become the world’s number three smartphone maker, according to its CEO Yang Yuanqing.

The terms of the deal see Lenovo cough up $660 million cash, plus $750 million in newly-issued Lenovo stock, with the remaining $1.5 billion paid in the form of a three-year promissory note. For this, Lenovo gets its hands on Motorola’s mobile devices, but Google will keep the company’s patent portfolio.

In the short term, it’s unlikely we’ll see many dramatic changes. Motorola’s branding will remain on all of its devices, but the company will now operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lenovo. Rick Osterloh will continue as the company COO, and it will remain headquartered in Chicago. Lenovo has also said it plans to continue with the DROID and Moto product lines, and remains committed to developing hardware running pure Android.

“In Lenovo we have a partner that shares our mission and that brings global scale, a diverse product portfolio and a track record of seizing strategic opportunities and making the most of them,” said Osterloh in a blog post.

As for Lenovo, the acquisition brings it a step closer to realizing its dream of becoming the main challenger to Apple and Samsung’s mobile dominance. It’s already seen strong growth in the area this year, posting a 71 percent jump in mobile sales in May of this year, results that prompted Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang to confidently boast “we can grow no matter what the market conditions.”

As for Google, it just seems happy to have washed its hands of the businesses once and for all. “Motorola is in great hands with Lenovo, a company that’s all-in on making great devices,” was all Google CEO Larry Page had to say on the matter.