How does Motorola win back the Chinese market?
After three years of separation, Motorola, which was recruited by Lenovo, officially returned to the Chinese market. On January 26, at the National Convention Center in Beijing, Motorola, as a sub-brand of Lenovo, released three products: the new Moto X, the new Moto G and the Moto X Pro. Among them, the new Moto X starts at 3,299 yuan. Reservations start from now; the new Moto G starts at 1,299 yuan, and reservations will begin on February 10; however, the Moto X Pro price, launch time and other information have not yet been disclosed. This time, Lenovo is different from the past. New Moto products will focus on online sales and will be available for simultaneous reservation on six major e-commerce platforms.
This is the first press conference for the Motorola brand after its return to China, and it is also the first press conference for Lenovo in 2015. The scene is spectacular and makes people feel full of enthusiasm around them. If the entire conference could be summarized in a few terms, they would be regression, nostalgia, sentiment, warmth, innovation, technology, and customization.
After the press conference, Jiwei.com and other media met with Liu Jun, executive vice president of Lenovo Group, president of Lenovo Mobile Business Group, and chairman of the Motorola Mobility Management Committee, and Rick Osterloh, president and chief operating officer of Motorola Mobility Technologies. , Zhang Hui, Vice President of Lenovo Group and General Manager of MBG China Mobile Phone Business, had a more in-depth communication on the impact of the return of motorcycles on Lenovo and its future.
There is no doubt that Motorola, as a sub-brand of Lenovo, will make a mark in overseas markets. But back in China, the situation may be very different. It is undeniable that Motorola once dominated the Chinese market and once topped the list. Lenovo even went to great lengths to become Motorola's distributor. However, as Motorola lost momentum and was acquired by Google, and then the "servant" became its "master", things have changed in the world. Today's Chinese mobile phone market is no longer the fertile ground it once was, and today's Motorola is no longer the fertile ground it once was.It's less domineering than it used to be. Under the banner of "return", Motorola will not have an easy road in the Chinese market. This may not be a good move.
Moto has a profit formula
Lenovo acquired Moto for only US$2.9 billion, which looks great, but you must know that Moto was acquired a year ago The current loss reached nearly 1 billion US dollars. It is no exaggeration to say that it is a heavy burden for Lenovo. Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO of Lenovo Group, once said that Lenovo is confident that Motorola Mobility can turn losses into profits in the next 4-6 quarters.
Where does Lenovo’s confidence come from? Liu Jun said that Motorola’s profit formula has been calculated. He believes that Motorola's operating expenses are actually not high. Google has reduced its workforce from 30,000 people to more than 3,000 people in two years, and has made extreme reductions in weight.
The first condition for the profit formula is to expand the scale. Because the hardware industry needs economies of scale, this is why Lenovo wants to help Motorola return to the Asia-Pacific region and China as soon as possible.
In addition, cost saving is also very important, mainly reflected in materials, manufacturing costs, and of course layoffs.
After checking the materials, Motorola and Lenovo currently share 60% of the materials, and the other 40% of the materials are special materials. But the cost gap between the two is large, because the material cost also depends on the scale. Moto will further reduce costs by leveraging Lenovo's supply chain advantages in the future.
Looking to new channels
In terms of sales channels, Lenovo officials revealed that in the future, Motorola’s product lines will be used more online and offline in China. Sales will be conducted in an interactive way, and channel partners and retail terminals that have previously cooperated with Lenovo will also provide corresponding support. Smartphones such as moto x, moto x pro, and moto g, as well as wireless headset product moto hint, which enter China this time, will also be launched simultaneously on Motorola’s official website and online platforms such as JD.com, Tmall, Suning, and Gome (Weibo).
However, for Lenovo, its channel advantage in the past was at the operator level. Social channels and e-commerce channels were not dominant compared to competitors. In the high-end mobile phone market positioned by Motorola, Social channels and e-commerce channels are more important than operator channels. Manufacturers such as Huawei and Xiaomi have poured into the high-end market to intensify competition. This is a new test for both Lenovo and Motorola. The support Lenovo can ultimately provide to Motorola remains to be seen by the market. observe.
After all, in addition to the competitiveness of the product itself, the support Motorola needs most right now is large-scale marketing and channel expansion.
Liu Jun said frankly that due to the significant reduction of subsidies by domestic operators last year, the overall market share of operators dropped from 60% to about 30%, which had a great impact on Lenovo, which relied on operator channels. , Lenovo is currently making every effort to open up the market to the online marketMarch.
Of course, after Lenovo acquired Motorola, the integration of the two parties still brought some synergy effects. The integration of the supply chain systems of both parties will enhance the negotiation power in the supply chain and help reduce costs; the integration of the sales organization will help Motorola expand its market share by leveraging Lenovo's sales teams in China, Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe and other markets.
The latest report released by market research organization TrendForce shows that Lenovo’s global smartphone shipments last year exceeded 90 million units, with an annual growth rate of more than 100%, and its global market share reached 7.9%, ranking first in the world. Top three.
However, compared with the market effect brought about by the previous acquisition of ThinkPad in the PC market, the challenges faced by Lenovo in the mobile phone market are self-evident. Motorola needs to do more if it wants to reopen the gap in the Chinese market. Localized and down-to-earth efforts and attempts. ?
Dual-brand strategy
“China may be the most competitive smartphone market. There are both challenging companies and evergreen companies in the market. , we are more like a new company, returning to China as a challenger." Motorola Mobility President Rick Osterloh said in an interview with Tencent Technology and other media yesterday that Motorola's revenue in the past 12 months. Doubled, the cooperation with Lenovo will allow Motorola to further expand its market share. Currently, Motorola has about 7% market share in the United States, ranking between third and fourth. The best performing overseas markets include Brazil and India, with 12% and 5% shares respectively.
From the perspective of market strategy, after Motorola returns to China, Lenovo will implement a "dual-brand" strategy, one focusing on mid-to-high-end products and the other on entry-level consumer products. Liu Jun believes that in the Chinese market, Lenovo mobile phones and Motorola are not competing but complementary.
Previously, Lenovo Group Chairman Yang Yuanqing also revealed to Tencent Technology and other media at the US CES exhibition that in the Lenovo Group systemAmong them, Motorola will be positioned as a mid-to-high-end brand in the open market, Lenovo's existing Lenovo mobile phone brand will be positioned as a mid-to-low-end brand, and Magic Works will be positioned as a brand-new Internet mobile phone brand.
However, competition in China’s smartphone market is fierce. How can Motorola quickly integrate into the Chinese market and reverse its past disadvantages after returning to China?
In this regard, Liu Jun first said that Motorola’s The management team began a consumer-oriented transformation two years ago, including product development and promotion, adhering to the original Android experience, rapid upgrades, and later personalized customization services such as Moto Maker, which formed Motorola's differentiated advantages.
On the operating system, Motorola will stick to the strategy of the original Android system when it returns to China, and at the same time make some localization attempts at the application level. Since overseas pre-installed Google (Weibo) services are not available in China, Provided, Motorola has made changes in search, navigation, search map, voice engine and other aspects, and Lenovo's applications such as Eggplant Express will also be built into the mobile phone.
Rick Osterloh did not clearly state whether Motorola will open ROOT permissions for mobile phone systems in China, but he emphasized that for the MOTO 360 smart watch, which is preparing to be introduced into the Chinese market, it will speed up cooperation with Google and be compatible with Chinese applications in the future. , there are no plans to adopt systems other than Android Wear.
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