Lenovo Group Ltd’s share price up, plans to bring Motorola brand back to China to consolidate positions

The Motorola brand is to be brought back to China by its owner Lenovo Group Ltd during the first quarter. The move comes as part of the companys strategy to re-establish the brand in the country after more than two-year-long absence.

The brand was withdrawn from the country by its previous owner Google Inc. in 2013. It was acquired by Lenovo in 2014. The company spent a total of about $5 billion for Motorola and the low-end server division of International Business Machines Corp.

As the Motorola spokesman, William Moss, revealed in a telephone interview, Lenovo plans to bring back the brand to China, the largest smartphone market in the world.

William Moss said in a statement, cited by Bloomberg: “It’s been about two years since we actively launched products in China. Lenovo has been clear for some time that bringing Motorola back to China was going to be a priority. It’s something we’ve been working very hard on since the close of the acquisition.”

According to his statement, the company intends to release its Moto X and G devices in the country during the first three months of this year. Lenovo has set the younger and more prosperous customers as a target group for its new devices, that are to be put on sale.

2015 is considered as a crucial year for Lenovo, which will have to consolidate its new acquisitions and put an end to the scepticism of some analysts, who believe the China-based company had paid way too much for Motorola.

The President and Chief Operating Officer of the Motorola handset unit, Rick Osterloh, said in an interview for the Financial Times: “If you want to be amongst the top [smartphone] providers, you have to be in China. It’s a maths problem. We see this as a huge synergy as part of the Lenovo acquisition.”

Lenovo Group Ltd gained 3.37% to close at HK$10.42 per share today, marking a one-year increase of 16.04%. The company is valued at HK$111.75 billion.