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Lenovo sees Motorola as a new growth engine [Gulf News (United Arab Emirates)]
[October 31, 2014]

Lenovo sees Motorola as a new growth engine [Gulf News (United Arab Emirates)]


(Gulf News (United Arab Emirates) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Dubai: It is a perfect time for the Motorola acquisition and a perfect feat for Lenovo, Yang Yuanging chairman and CEO of Lenovo said in a conference call on Thursday, after the world's largest PC manufacturer announced the completion of its $2.91 billion (Dh10.69 billion) acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google Inc.



He said that Motorola is already winning markets with the financial results and can be a strong growth engine in the future.

"Their [Motorola] financial results are significantly improving, their revenues were up and shipments soaring. With Motorola being part of Lenovo now, the future is brighter," Yuanging said.


Google, which purchased Motorola Mobility for $12.4 billion in 2012, will keep over 2,000 patent assets and a large number of patent cross-license agreements, as well as the Motorola Mobility brand and trademark portfolio while offloading the handset business.

"The acquisition is very complementary to each other and can turn Motorola into profitability in the next four to six quarters," Yuanging said.

With this acquisition, Motorola brand is not disappearing from the market, said Rick Osterloh, Motorola President and COO. "This is a great acquisition for Motorola. Chicago remains as the global headquarters for Motorola and it will continue to be the heart of our operations," he said.

According to him, Lenovo is a very successful company and there is an opportunity to sell Motorola products through Lenovo channels and Lenovo products through Motorola channels and drive substantial revenue in the combined business. Motorola is present only in 45 countries while Lenovo is present across the world.

Lenovo which will operate Motorola as a wholly-owned subsidiary, has strong presence in China, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe and other emerging markets, while Motorola has strong presence in the US, North America, Latin America and other mature markets.

Rick will continue to be president and chief operating officer of Motorola, while Liu Jun, the head of Lenovo's mobile business, will become Motorola chairman.

Lenovo's goal is to sell 100 million mobile devices (80 million smartphones and 20 million tablets) by end of March next year.

The company sold 50 million smartphones last year.

Just before the acquisition, Lenovo was placed fourth in global smartphone rankings after Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi with 5.2 per cent and with 16.9 million devices sold in the third quarter.

After the deal, Lenovo has become the clear third with 8.7 per cent market share and 25.6 million devices. Motorola sold 8.7 million devices during the quarter.

"We will have Motorola in mature markets and dual brands in emerging markets in the future. We can challenge the top two players [Samsung and Apple] in the market with the acquisition and we are the only one who can," Yuanging said.

Liu Jun, Lenovo's executive vice-president and president of Lenovo's Mobile Business Group, said that Motorola has already built solid momentum in the market, and their recent results show consumers are excited about their exceptional products that stand out for their design and simplicity.

When asked about BlackBerry acquisition, Yuanging said: "We are definitely focusing on the equation of this deal and if we want to make another deal we need to make money from this acquisition. So we don't want to comment on further acquisitions. " (c) 2014 Al Nisr Publishing LLC . All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

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