Motorola thrives in Q2 2014 thanks to Moto G, Moto E success

Last year, at this time the buzz in relation to Motorola was Moto X, the first phone to be fully produced under Google. But a year later, the company’s fortunes and future is thoroughly linked to the imminent Lenovo takeover.

Since the Moto X launch, Motorola also launched the Moto G and Moto E smartphones, setting the budget smartphone landscape on fire. Their success has resulted in a sparkling quarter for the company this year. Motorola sold 8.6 million smartphones in the second quarter, up nearly 30 percent from the previous quarter, and more than double what it sold in the same period in 2013, according to ABI Research.

While Motorola is still far and away from Apple and Samsung, who sold over 110 million phones between them in the same period, the company’s position is in stark contrast to what people expected last year. “The resurgence has slightly surprised me, to be honest. I didn’t expect to see Motorola come back in a meaningful way, but it actually has,” Nick Spencer, senior practice director at ABI Research, was quoted as saying by PCWorld.

Motorola has built this limited success on the back of a clear plan: give consumers the right version of Android with some extras, at the right price. The Moto G represented the first of those efforts , while the Moto E totally decimated competition in the low-end category.

And now the company has a bigger fight on its hands, especially as Chinese manufacturers make their way into India. Motorola has to find ways to cut through the noise in the Indian market, especially, which still retains some love for the brand, even in the face of strong competition from Asus, Xiaomi and the Indian brigade.

Motorola is expected to release successors for the Moto G and the Moto X in the coming months, while the Moto 360 has also got enough early interest for us to look at it closely. It could be a big success when it does hit markets, but there are a lot of new rivals to contend with too.