Lenovo to phase out Motorola branding from smartphones

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Published 8 Jan 2016

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Motorola boot logo

Motorola’s Chief Operating Officer, Rick Osterloh, revealed to CNet at the show floor of CES 2016 in Las Vegas that the Motorola branding will soon be phased out, and that Lenovo — which acquired Motorola from Google in 2014 — will unify its two phone businesses under one name.

Lenovo will use the Moto branding for its high-end smartphones and its own Vibe branding for its mid to low-end smartphones. The Motorola branding will also continue to live in the corporate world as one of the division’s of Lenovo.

“We’ll slowly phase out Motorola and focus on Moto,” Osterloh said in an exclusive interview Thursday at the CES conference in Las Vegas.”

Lenovo also plans on displaying its own blue logo on all high-end Moto products in all its glory. It will also continue to use Motorola’s ‘M’ logo on its devices.

Lastly, Osterloh revealed that his team will soon take over all the mobile operations at Lenovo. By unifying both companies, they can leverage each other’s strengths for their own benefits. One key benefit of this move will be that Moto products will now be available in markets where Lenovo products have been available so far, and vice versa.

In markets where the Lenovo branding has a strong value, the Moto brand will be introduced as a premium one. The unification will also allow Lenovo to sell its sub-$100 Vibe smartphones in the United States, though that is unlikely to happen this year.

Moto had stopped using its ‘Motorola’ branding on its product packaging since 2013, so it is unlikely that many consumers will notice this change. Nonetheless, the Motorola brand played a key role in the invention of phones, and it is disappointing to see the brand being phased out.

[Via CNet]