Lenovo chief executive Yuanqing Yang recently sat down with the Wall Street Journal to talk about growth in emerging markets, and he had something interesting to say about the next Motorola phone.
According to Yang, the company wants to leverage Motorola’s brand in the U.S. market. He said the next phone will launch in July and it would be “more innovative” and “more attractive.”
Unfortunately, that’s all he said, so there isn’t much else to go on other than speculation.
After purchasing Motorola about two years ago, Lenovo recently said the Motorola branding would be retired in favor of Moto by Lenovo. Other than the Droids, all of Motorola’s recent phones have the Moto branding, so it’s not that drastic of a change. Based on this information, it’s possible that Yang is referring to the next Moto X, which is Motorola’s most premium line. There is also the Moto G and the Moto E, but those phones are more for emerging markets and budget-conscious consumers.
What’s most interesting about Yang’s comment is the “innovation” part. Lenovo already showed off a Project Tango phone at CES earlier this month. Developed by Google, Project Tango enables smartphones to map a user’s location in 3D, and in real-time. It’s expected to launch this summer, and it would obviously be considered innovative, but this new phone is expected to fall under the Lenovo branding.
The only other hint we have is the previous comment from Lenovo’s head of mobile Chen Xudong. He said that all Motorola flagships will include fingerprint scanners and displays of more than 5-inches.
We will just have to wait until July to find out what exactly Motorola has in store. In the meantime, we’re pretty sure a few tidbits will leak along the way.
On another note, Yang jumped on the “iPhone is dying” bandwagon and said that Apple has “reached a ceiling in the U.S. market.” His belief is that Apple’s market share of over 50 percent can’t continue to grow, while Android has room for growth. He predicts that “Android will take more share.”
