Lenovo folds smartphone unit under Motorola

Motorola's President Rick Osterloh will lead Lenovo's mobile charge under the Motorola brand

Lenovo announced today that it will shift all of its smartphone operations, including design and manufacturing under the Motorola banner. Lenovo acquired Motorola Mobility from Google last year for US $2.1 billion and 3,500 employees were retained. This made Lenovo the third largest smartphone maker at the time.

As a result of this move, Lenovo Mobile, which is the company's smartphone arm, will likely be dissolved while Motorola becomes the recognized corporate marquee for all things mobile. Motorola President Rick Osterloh will run the new division. Lenovo has been selling various models of smartphones in Asia and in emerging markets, under Motorola the product lines are expected to be trimmed down. Motorola's current Moto E, Moto G and Moto X lines as well as the Droid devices sold in the US via Verizon will likely be spun off to fill in the gaps left by the Lenovo models.

Source: AppleInsider