Google published quarterly results which showed continued struggles for its Motorola Mobility arm, which it this week announced is to be sold to Chinese player Lenovo.

The smartphone unit saw a fourth quarter GAAP operating loss of $507 million, compared with a prior-year loss of $353 million, on revenue of $1.15 billion, compared with $1.51 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012.

There has also been a headcount reduction at Motorola, falling to 3,894 from 4,259 during the three months.

Unsurprisingly, no additional detail on the proposed deal was given during the company’s quarterly call, although Patrick Pichette, SVP and CFO, noted: “We’ve always had clear objectives to support all of our partners. And after this transaction, it’s very clear that we’ll continue to be kind of this impartial supporter of the entire ecosystem.”

During the call, Google did not specifically detail its other mobile activities, with Pichette stating that its strategy is more about “living with the user” regardless of whether use comes “on a TV, whether it would be on a mobile phone, whether it would be on the desktop, whether it would be with Google Glass wearables”.

On a group level, the company reported a net profit of $3.38 billion, up 17 per cent year-on-year, on revenue of $16.86 billion, up 16.9 per cent.

Non-Motorola Mobility revenue was $15.71 billion, up 21.7 per cent.