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Motorola is going away, says Lenovo
In circa 2005, it seemed like every time a cell phone rang, that cellphone was a Razr flip phone, and the sound you heard was Motorola’s iconic “Hello Moto” ringtone. Now it’s time to finally say “goodbye” to Motorola. At CES today, Lenovo higher-ups announced that their company, which has owned Motorola since 2014, will be phasing out the brand name.
This doesn’t mean that the Moto line is dead, however. Moto smartphones will still be in production in the coming years, complete with their familiar M-brand symbol. However, these devices will also have Lenovo’s branding and iconography.
The basic idea is this: Lenovo wants the brand recognition Motorola used to enjoy. Although Motorola fell out of the spotlights as Samsung and Apple came to dominate the mobile market, they still enjoy a fairly decent fanbase. Lenovo, on the other hand, is a much more obscure name in the mobile industry. Sure, they’re a big deal in computers, but when it comes to smartphones, Motorola is massive by comparison. When they bought the company from Google, it was to bolster their presence in the mobile market.
Lenovo is looking to keep the Moto line running as their upper-tier devices and and continue selling their smartphones as more budget-friendly alternatives. The company hopes that appending their signage to the more highly-regarded Moto devices will increase their brand recognition in the mobile market and perhaps boost the sell of their lower tier products as well.
From the consumer’s perspective, this looks to be a case of ‘a rose by any other name.’ The same people are continuing to develop and produce the same products, the words associated with them will just change as the Motorola brand vanishes. From Lenovo’s perspective, this looks to be good marketing, plain and simple.
What are your thoughts regarding the disappearance of the Motorola brand? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to click the button below to stay abreast of all our CES 2016 coverage!