Yesterday, there were reports that said Lenovo will phase out Motorola brand for smartphones. Later Motorola in a statement said, “Motorola Mobility continues to exist as a Lenovo company and is the engineering and design engine for all of our mobile products. However, for our product branding we will utilize a dual brand strategy across smartphone and wearables going forward using Moto and Vibe globally”.
Today Motorola confirmed that Motorola and Lenovo are aiming to streamline their overall product portfolio and focus on two product sub-brands – Moto and Vibe. Check out the detailed explanation from Motorola on their official blog.
First, and most importantly, Motorola Mobility isn’t going anywhere. In fact, just last August Motorola Mobility assumed a much more central role in Lenovo’s smartphone business. As a wholly owned subsidiary, we remain the engineering, design and manufacturing engine for all of the Mobile Business Group’s smartphones and wearables. Motorola’s engineering heritage is hugely important to this effort, and that isn’t going to change.
Over the years, we have made font and color changes, and more recently we made the strategic decision to focus on “Moto” as our primary product brand. “Moto” is synonymous with Motorola, and it conveys the Motorola brand to consumers in a contemporary and engaging way. That wasn’t the only thing that evolved — the iconic batwing was static blue or red for many years, and we made it fun and colorful. That symbol, which has come to represent the “Moto” brand, continues to play a prominent role, and will remain on our products and in our marketing.
This latest move is all about where we focus our brand marketing efforts in the future. That will be on our two hero smartphone brands: Moto and Vibe, with the Lenovo corporate brand tying all of our consumer and commercial products together more holistically.