Lenovo Retires Motorola Smartphone Brand
- Monday, January 11th, 2016
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One of the most well-known brand names in mobile is set to disappear over the course of 2016, as parent company Lenovo abandons the Motorola brand, with only Moto by Lenovo to remain going forward into the future.
The Motorola name helped build the smartphone industry, with the iconic Razr flip-phone and the famous “Hello Moto” advertising tagline. Despite its widespread recognition, Lenovo will no longer use the brand for smartphones or any other devices, instead uniting its mobile division under the Moto banner.
“Well slowly phase out Motorola and focus on Moto,” said Rick Osterloh, chief operating officer of Lenovos Motorola division at an exclusive press conference at CES, according to CNET.
Lenovo bought Motorola from Google for around $750m (£515m) in early 2014, and the Motorola and Moto brands have co-existed since then. Lenovo is one of the worlds largest PC makers, but has struggled to gain much of a foothold in the mobile market outside of China.
The Moto brand will continue to use the iconic batwing logo, as well as continuing production of recent successes like the Moto G and Moto X smartphones, and Moto 360 smartwatch. However, these and all future products will be branded as “Moto by Lenovo”.
The Motorola name will continue to live on within Lenovo, and will become the corporate name for the division for new devices, while Lenovo is likely to emphasis its own branding on future, with new products prominently featuring the blue Lenovo logo.