Lenovo hopes to say Hello Moto to smartphone cash

Brand to account for 40% of its 2016 smartmobe sales

A year after buying Motorola, Lenovo is looking to sell a lot of its once highly popular phones.

The Chinese company expects the brand to account for 40 per cent of the smartphones it sells next year. Combined Motorola and Lenovo sales of smartphones last year were 85 million. This would make it the third-largest smartphone manufacturer in the world.

“We have a plan to ramp up Motorola,” Liu Jun, president of the mobile business group at Lenovo said at CES.

The Motorola brand will soon be re-launched in China. At one time Motorola was the top selling Sino cellphone, but when Google bought the company, the market was dropped as part of the savage cuts. Google has an “it’s complicated” relationship with China.

There is, however, still significant market awareness of the Motorola brand in China, though the company will have to take on the likes of fast moving Xiaomi and Huawei. The re-introductions will see the Moto X, new Moto X Pro and the Moto G go on sale in China.

Although the current portfolio does not reflect this, the Moto G being a budget phone, the American brand will be used for phones over $400 while the Lenovo brand will move to focus below that price point. Manufacture will be moved from Motorola’s existing suppliers to Lenovo’s own factories.

Lenovo has meanwhile launched a high-end Android mobe: The P90, which at $399 just slips under the “Is it a Motorola? Limit. The new phone has a quad core, 64-bit Intel Atom Z3560 processor (Merrifield) and its XMM 7260 LTE modem. This is CAT 6 so has a theoretical maximum speed of 300Mbps. The P90 has a 1080 x 1920 display, 13MP camera, 5MP front-facing, 32GB internal memory, 2GB RAM and a 4000mAH non-removable battery and currently runs Kit-Kat.

Lenovo also announced the VIBE X2 Pro, which has a higher resolution front camera aimed at selfie lovers, and an e-ink smartwatch – the VIBE Band VB10. The low power monochrome display gives it a battery life of a week. ®