Lenovo-led Motorola has been doing good numbers for the parent company since its acquisition. The company went through a branding overhaul and took Lenovo’s support for introducing popular devices such as the Moto G5 and the innovative Moto Z series. The Moto brand surpassed Lenovo’s expectations and sales, which led it to go for a clarified product line-up, putting emphasis on the popular brand. Now, they have confirmed the exhaustion of the Vibe series of smartphones in India and assigning similarly priced Moto devices to gain revenue for the firm.
Jan Huckfeldt, vice president of global marketing & communications at the Lenovo Mobile Group and Motorola, has confirmed in an interview to India Today that they are discontinuing the Vibe series and going through a brand strategy overhaul.
However, Lenovo is keeping its popular K and Note series of smartphones on the shelves for India only. These products have done well in the market and are not affecting sales of products from the Moto division. Lenovo will continue to design smartphones in the budget as well as the mainstream category.
Globally, Lenovo is dropping its dual-brand strategy of selling smartphones, i.e. selling Lenovo and Motorola smartphones together. They are willing to use the Moto brand to cash in on the legacy of Motorola and try to make it more appealing to the youth. This could also mean that premier devices from Lenovo, like the Phab 2 Pro with Google Tango, could see their next iteration branded as a Moto device.
