Lenovo consolidates its Motorola smartphone brands under ‘Moto’
Mobile handsets produced for Lenovo by its subsidiary Motorola will be brought under ‘Moto’ branding as the company moves away from the Motorola Mobility name.
Motorola
Motorola Mobility, responsible for the engineering, design and manufacturing for Lenovo-branded mobiles will “evolve” into Moto.
The brand will “play a prominent role, and will remain on our products and in our marketing,” said the company in a blog post.
Two sub-brands, Moto and Vibe will represent Lenovo’s smartphone output worldwide.
Motorola assured that it will not fully disappear however: “Although it will not be the focus of our marketing, it will continue to be used on packaging and elsewhere, so as to ensure that the rich history and association is never lost. The legacy and the goodwill associated with the Motorola brand will also live on through our licensees.”
It will retain the Moto logo, but the rebrand marks a reduction in Motorola’s importance since its 2012 acquisition from Google and in 2014 when Lenovo seized it.
It’s not the only legacy mobile brand which has reduced its presence of course, Microsoft earlier this week called time on its once Nokia-branded smartphones after poor global sales and OS problems.