Lenovo said Motorola President Rick Osterloh will leave the company as the Chinese parent company restructures its organization and divides its mobile efforts into two primary business groups.
Lenovo named Xudong Chen and Aymar de Lencquesaing as co-presidents of its Mobile Business Group, with Chen focusing on the Chinese market and de Lencquesaing overseeing North America and other regions. Motorola personnel who reported to Osterloh will now be managed by de Lencquesaing, the company said.
Both Chen and Lencquesaing will report to Yuanqing Yang, Lenovo's chairman and CEO. The company also said its PC division will expand to include tablets, large-screen smartphones, gaming and smart home devices, and announced that its enterprise business will increasingly focus on the data center market.
The move marks Lenovo's latest effort to integrate Motorola, which it acquired from Google in 2014 for $2.91 billion. The Motorola brand – which produced the world's first handheld mobile phone – began to be phased out in a rebranding effort earlier this year.
"Rick Osterloh has decided to leave Motorola Mobility," Lenovo said in a brief press release. "His steady leadership since Lenovo's acquisition is appreciated and Lenovo wishes him continued success in the future."
Lenovo has continued to struggle in a competitive worldwide smartphone market even after its acquisition of Motorola. It claimed a 5.3 percent share of global smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2015, according to Strategy Analytics, down from 7.6 percent during the same period in 2014. Lenovo is particularly challenged in its home market of China, where smartphone sales have slowed as the market matures.
For more:
- see this Lenovo press release
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