In the mobile industry, there are actually only a handful of smartphone manufacturers that are actually making a profit. That would be Samsung and Apple. Other manufacturers like LG, Huawei, Sony, and Lenovo have been able to stick around because they do far more than just smartphones. For instance, LG makes appliances and Huawei is big into telecommunication equipment. Which help offset the cost of being in the mobile industry. However, for Lenovo, their PC business hasn’t been doing so well in recent years. And that’s likely due to many more people opting to use smartphones or tablets in place of a traditional laptop or desktop computer. Now they are looking to use Moto to offset that decline from their PC business.
This year, the company announced quite a few new smartphones. Both under their existing Vibe brand as well as Moto’s own brand. But it appears that they have some bigger and better plans set for the 2017 fiscal year. According to reports coming out of China, Lenovo is going to be targeting the high-end market a bit more aggressively. Now whether that means more high-end smartphones or even high-end smartphones at lower prices, is not known at this time. They are also planning to create more augmented-reality smartphones – likely using Google’s Tango – in 2017. Lenovo did release their first Tango-powered smartphone this year at Lenovo Tech World in June, although it has not yet hit store shelves.
Lenovo bought Motorola Mobility from Google in 2014 for about $2.91 billion. Much lower than what Google had paid for the company a few years earlier. This is due to the fact that Google split the company into Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions, and the fact that Google kept all of Motorola’s patents that way Android manufacturers would be able to use them. Lenovo bought Motorola Mobility with the hopes of becoming a competitor to Samsung. That hasn’t happened yet, but it does take time to integrate an acquisition, and to build up that brand again. After all, Motorola’s brand hasn’t been strong since around the time the original Motorola Droid came out in 2009. However, Lenovo is hoping that will change and change soon.