Lenovo bought Motorola back in 2014, and the company thought that they could revive the Motorola brand and have it thrive under the Lenovo umbrella. After all, they were able to do it with IBM, when they acquired them in 2005. Of course, Lenovo has had IBM under their belts a whole lot longer than Motorola has been, but it appears that Lenovo isn’t able to replicate the IBM success. Lenovo’s CEO told Motorola’s employees after the deal closed, that they would be a dominant company, in a few years. But here we are two years later and the company has slashed 2,000 jobs, and has actually fallen in market share, all the way down to number eight.
Lenovo’s CEO, Yang Yuanqing stated that they “underestimated the differences of the culture and the business model”. Yang has said in other interviews that the integration with Motorola did not go according to plan. But other employees (both current and former) of Lenovo, say that was just the tip of the iceberg. Lenovo seemingly lacked a clear vision on how to leverage the Motorola brand. Shortly after the deal was finalized in 2014, Lenovo pushed Motorola’s smartphones into China. Which wasn’t a great idea, in hindsight. This is because Lenovo was already a popular brand in China, not to mention the fact that China is one of the most saturated markets in the mobile industry right now. So Motorola’s offerings simply flopped, and never really gained any ground.
Meanwhile, in the US, Lenovo increased their spending on advertising. However, shortly thereafter, the company decided to slash advertising and product development, which has affected their brand and the devices that they are putting out. Now, Lenovo has increased advertising for both the Lenovo and Motorola brands, in fact advertising for Motorola increased by 30% in 2016. It’s still a bit too soon to see how much the extra advertising cash has helped Motorola, but it really can’t hurt them.
Lenovo has learned some valuable lessons with the purchase of Motorola. It’s something they likely won’t do again any time soon, and if they do, they will know what to do and what not to do, to have a successful acquisition.