Founded 88 years ago, Motorola was a US multinational telecommunications and electronics company. Having gone through so much throughout the years, the company has seen it all. In the world of cellular phones, Motorola launched some of the most iconic phones. The RAZR line needs no introduction with sales topping over 120 million units bringing the company to second place in the mobile phone slot back in 2005.
Having lost a total of 4.3 billion dollars over the course of 2 years from 2007 to 2009, Motorola broke into two public companies. Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions in the start of 2011.
Lenovo took the Mobility division under its wing in 2014 and Google put the company in the limelight again with the Nexus 6 released by the end of 2014.
Lenovo invested a big 2.91 Billion dollars for the purchase of Motorola and despite the popularity of Moto G smartphone range and the intriguing Moto Z series, The assimilation and transition has not been easy. The company has had to bear the loss of sales, lost its position in the global ranking of being 3rd along with a staggering 3000 jobs.
According to the former employees, forcing Moto brand back into China in 2015 was one of the worst mistakes with market declines from 12% to just 2% as only 200k Motorola handsets were sold. The company left Chinese markets after Google acquired it. Starting the Zuk phone series to compete with the likes of Xiaomi, the company took another fall and by August of 2015 planned to cut down its costs annually and give up 3200 more jobs.
Having dealt with a major crisis and managing to bring the company back up and running with a variety of new generation of smartphones that do not overshadow the potential of either products from Lenovo or Motorola, Mr. Yang, Chief executive of Lenovo states that the company’s smartphone business will be successful. The statement is sound considering that Lenovo moved up to the 6th largest brand with a 30% increase in its advertising budget for Moto phones. The Flagship Moto Z has already received a positive response and 2017 will tell if Lenovo has done enough to bring back Motorola in the game.