Has Lenovo beaten Xiaomi to the no.3 spot, now that it has officially acquired Motorola?

News has just come in that **Lenovo has closed the Motorola Mobility acquisition** deal from Google at $2.91 billion. Just today morning, we had seen the IDC figures which put **Xiaomi at no.3** after Samsung and Apple, as far as global smartphone shipments and market share went. But with Lenovo having acquired Motorola, these numbers will surely see a revision. According to a tweet posted by Lenovo’s vice president of global communications, Jeff Shafer, Lenovo should be the new no.3.

Shipment data on #smartphone was a day too early. As of this morning @motorola + @lenovo are the clear # 3 with 8.7% and a global footprint.

— Jeff Shafer (@jeffshaferPR) October 30, 2014

While market share and shipment numbers aren’t out yet for the combined Lenovo and Motorola mobile handsets, it appears like Shafer’s statement may have some weight. Let’s look at the chart below which was released yesterday.  Xiaomi shows a 5.3 per cent market share whereas Lenovo is quite close at 5.2 per cent. Even in terms of volumes shipped, Lenovo is just 400,000 units short. Motorola has had a good run in the last year with its **Moto G** , Moto X and **Moto E** handsets. We are not even considering the latest generation Moto G and Moto X which launched a month back. But with reported sales of **over a million Moto devices** in India alone, it is safe to assume that Lenovo has indeed unseated Xiaomi from the no. 3 spot. It is only a matter of time before we come to know the official numbers of the combined share of Lenovo and Motorola smartphones. Officially for Q3 2014 though, Xiaomi will be number 3. Too bad that the Lenovo acquisition took place after a day of the Smartphone vendor rankings.