Five years ago, Lenovo bought Motorola Mobility, which was then owned by Google, and then something happened to the brand. In Lenovo's ownership, Motorola Mobility has grown to become a leader in many Latin American countries, going from 0 to 10% market share in the US and from making last year's loss to profit for the first time in a long time. This may be due to the experience of the IT market, where Lenovo has previously made a similar journey from being very small in the market to becoming the largest in the world on PC today with a market share of 24.6%.
Oscar Fernandez Thunström, CEO of Motorola Mobility in the Nordic countries, believes that it is the opportunity to offer a complete range that will be crucial for success in the future: “as one of the few suppliers in the Nordic region, Lenovo can offer a complete solution with PC, tablet, mobile telephony and data center. Today we have approx. 300 employees who have experience selling PCs to companies, authorities and municipalities as well as to dealers and online shops.”
Of course, when Motorola Mobility once again chose Ingram Micro as a distributor for mobile phones, it already meant that there was already established cooperation on the IT side through Lenovo. “Ingram Micro, with its breadth and experience, has the ability to really sell a complete range from Lenovo. They have a wide reach in both e-commerce and retail and not least the corporate market", explains Oscar Thunström.
Motorola goes on to be the brand that created the mobile communications industry and actually made the first mobile phone call possible. However, they have never had offices in Europe, but have run the business remotely until now when they are owned by Lenovo, which has a local organization in place in Sweden and the Nordic countries. The head office is still in Chicago, but today there is a stronger presence than ever in Europe.
The first few years after the acquisition, Motorola Mobility grew organically, but now that the numbers are green, they plan to make investments that will produce even faster growth. A significantly larger market share is envisaged within the next 2-3 years. In today's market climate, you see openings with operators and in the corporate market, and you are targeting both small and large companies, authorities and municipalities.
“With our models, we can offer the market mobile phones with very good specifications at a reasonable price as well as regular security updates. There is a trend in the Nordic countries where the prices of phones have only gone up, and it has become a norm that they cost more and more. We want to challenge the emotional acquisition and make companies more rational in the purchase without compromising quality or functionality”, says Oscar.
Motorola's ambition to challenge the established buying pattern is something that is included in the communication, in addition to the obvious product information, in the close collaboration that is in the process of building up with Ingram Micro's mobility sellers.
“The fact that we are again getting Motorola's mobile phones in the range strengthens our portfolio. It fits in with the strategy of having a range of mobile phones in different price ranges, and with Lenovo we can also offer the full range of hardware from one and the same supplier”, says Per Andersson, Product Manager at Ingram Micro.