Motorola explains Lenovo's rebranding plan

Following reports that Lenovo will phase out Motorola brand from smartphone, Motorola released an official statement in its blog addressing the re-branding plan.

Motorola reassured that 'Motorola Mobility' will continue to exist and Lenovo will still use the name for its phone division. The Motorola team will still have the same people designing and manufacturing devices. Motorola went on to assure that though Motorola name will disappear the brand will live on with 'Moto'.


Motorola also confirmed that Lenovo and Motorola will focus to streamline their entire product protfolio on 'Moto' and 'Vibe', which will be under the Lenovo branding. The Moto devices will come with the iconic 'M' batwing logo.

In simple words, Motorola is not going away, but being re-branded as Lenovo. This means, Motorola devices will hit the market under the Lenovo brand name. Motorola will make and design their own products, but will be under the Lenovo branding 'Moto by Lenovo', while Lenovo will be concentrating on their own Vibe series product.

Here's what Motorola had to say-

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.