Lenovo To Bury Iconic Motorola Brand In Favor Of ‘Moto by Lenovo’
There was a time when the Motorola brand was a big deal in the mobile phone space. Remember all those Razr flip phones that were all the rage? That was Motorola's heyday, and it's now a distant memory, have given way to the likes of Apple, Samsung, and HTC. And starting soon, the Motorola brand will no longer be found on new mobile phone devices.
Lenovo, the world's top supplier of PCs, purchased Motorola Mobility from Google two years ago for $2.91 billion. It was a far better deal than the one Google inked for the brand in 2012, which cost the search giant $12.5 billion, a move that was largely made in pursuit of Motorola's extensive patent portfolio.
Going forward, Lenovo plans to truncate the brand and attach it to its own name. Specifically, the Chinese outfit will sell its high-end smartphones under a new "Moto by Lenovo" label. It's part of a plan to "phase out Motorola and focus on Moto," Lenovo said.
The phase out applies to phones, not the Motorola division itself, which will remain named as such. But beyond the corporate side, it's unlikely we'll ever see any new Motorola brand products, at least as long as Lenovo owns it.
While not specified, it's likely that Lenovo is trying to leverage Moto's longstanding reputation in the mobile space to promote the Lenovo brand. If the strategy works, it wouldn't surprise us to see Lenovo drop the Moto nomenclature altogether sometime down the line.
Lenovo, the world's top supplier of PCs, purchased Motorola Mobility from Google two years ago for $2.91 billion. It was a far better deal than the one Google inked for the brand in 2012, which cost the search giant $12.5 billion, a move that was largely made in pursuit of Motorola's extensive patent portfolio.
Going forward, Lenovo plans to truncate the brand and attach it to its own name. Specifically, the Chinese outfit will sell its high-end smartphones under a new "Moto by Lenovo" label. It's part of a plan to "phase out Motorola and focus on Moto," Lenovo said.
The phase out applies to phones, not the Motorola division itself, which will remain named as such. But beyond the corporate side, it's unlikely we'll ever see any new Motorola brand products, at least as long as Lenovo owns it.
While not specified, it's likely that Lenovo is trying to leverage Moto's longstanding reputation in the mobile space to promote the Lenovo brand. If the strategy works, it wouldn't surprise us to see Lenovo drop the Moto nomenclature altogether sometime down the line.
