Motorola Q4 Sales Skyrocket To 10 Million Units Under Lenovo's Stewardship

Life can be a whole easier when you find the right partner. That's true in business as well -- just look at Motorola Mobility and the recent success it's had under Lenovo's leadership. According to Lenovo's financial report for its third fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2014, Motorola Mobility's device shipments are up 118 percent year-over-year.

That translates into 10 million device shipments during the quarter, which added $1.9 billion in revenue to Lenovo's Mobile Business Group (MBG). And that's just the tip of the iceberg -- Lenovo says Motorola Mobility will soon re-enter China, which will help put it on track to be profitable within 4 to 6 quarters.

It's important that Motorola be successful so that Lenovo can justify the nearly $3 billion it spent acquiring the brand a year ago. In addition, Motorola is a critical part of Lenovo's plan to become a dominant force in mobile, for which the company is well on its way.


"Combining shipments of Motorola and Lenovo-branded devices made Lenovo a truly global player, the third largest vendor of smartphones behind Samsung and Apple and their most credible challenger," Lenovo said. "Together, the two brands had nearly 6.6 percent market share, up 78 percent year-on-year."

That may not seem like much market share, but the figure to pay attention to is the 78 percent growth. Lenovo is being both strategic and aggressive in its plans to compete with Samsung and Apple, and it's already paying off. The company is confident, too.

"Lenovo has built the scale, distribution, brand assets and IP portfolio required to compete around the world and challenge the top two players. And, as smartphone trends move from premium to mainstream, and mature to emerging markets, Lenovo is in the best position to capture these next waves of growth and deliver its stated profitability commitments in the Motorola business.," the company said.

While in the process of growing its mobile business, Lenovo is becoming a more balanced company. PCs now account for 65 percent of the firm's revenue, followed by mobile at 24 percent and enterprise at 9 percent, versus one year ago when PCs accounted for 81 percent.