Lenovo: Hello, Moto

Once completed, the purchase will make Lenovo the world's third largest smartphone maker behind Samsung and Apple. The deal will also enable Lenovo to receive over 2,000 patent assets and the iconic Motorola Mobility brand. But Google will keep the majority of Motorola's patents, including existing patent applications and invention disclosure. Motorola Mobility makes Moto X and Moto G Android smartphones. It is currently the U.S' third-biggest Android-based smartphone manufacturer. Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo's chairman and CEO, says the deal will help Lenovo crack the smartphone market in the U.S. "The deal will not only help us to open the door to a mature market, but also boost our competiveness in the U.S. because of the patents we are going to receive. Google has a profound patent protection system, so it will make us a step ahead of our peers. I think such a deal worth 2.9 billion dollars. And Google can also get what it wants by retaining its key patents. It is a win-win deal. " Yang says the company has set a goal of selling 100 million smartphones worldwide in 2015. Motorola Mobility's CEO, Dennis Woodside, says Lenovo's hardware expertise and global reach will help Motorola to accelerate its new product sales. Motorola reported a loss of 249 million dollars in the third quarter of 2013, up 24 percent from the same period a year ago. Liu Jun, vice president of Lenovo's mobile business group, says the company plans to stage a comeback for Motorola in the Chinese market. "Motorola used to have a very good reputation in China and the brand was well known. So if everything goes according to the plan, we will bring Motorola phones back to the Chinese market." The deal is the second major acquisition for Lenovo in just two weeks. Last week, the Thinkpad-maker said it will buy IBM's low-end server business for 2.3 billion dollars. Following its purchase of IBM's personal computer business in 2005, the Beijing-based firm has started a number of international mergers and acquisitions to enhance its global presence. In 2013, the company was rated as the world's largest PC maker, and China's second biggest smartphone seller after Huawei. However in the global smartphone market, Lenovo accounts for only 4.5 percent of the sales. That lags far behind the top seller, Samsung, which controls over 31 percent of the market. The Motorola Mobility deal still needs to be approved by U.S. and Chinese regulators.