India is the third biggest market in value for Moto, says Jan Huckfeldt, the chief marketing officer (CMO) of Motorola, adding that the India market is among the fastest growing alongside the Brazil market for the brand. Motorola was acquired by Chinese phone and PC maker Lenovo from Google for $2.9 billion three years ago.

Huckfeldt said that Lenovo is positioning Moto as the premium brand for the company and that the brand is regaining its marketshare in the US and Brazil, its top two markets in terms of value. Moto recently launched its most premium product, Moto Z, with accessories like digital camera, JBL speakers, attachable batteries, projectors, as also removable cases. Huckfeldt was in Bengaluru to work with developers in the city to enhance the various use cases of Moto Z.

"Moto and Lenovo address two different consumer segments with the spec conscious customers going for Lenovo and customers looking for a trustable brand buying Moto," said Huckfeldt. He added that the two brands together control around 25% of the market in online sales in India.

Motorola was the first popular smartphone brand to start selling exclusively online in India. Online sales now constitute almost 35% of all smartphone sales in the country. Chinese players like Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, Huawei and LeEco have all gained popularity in Asian countries in general and India in particular. "Moto has consistently grown higher than the smartphone industry growth," Huckfeldt said.

Lenovo established a manufacturing plant in Chennai 18 months ago. It has the capacity to make 6 million units a year, around 60% of the company's sales in the country. "It is not a screwdriver assembly unit but a full-fledged manufacturing plant. Our scale in India is now big enough," Huckfeldt added, alluding to some smartphone makers who have started assembly units in India to save on tax and duty liability. Apple is also considering establishing a smartphone assembly unit in Bengaluru. Lenovo has a PC manufacturing plant too, in Puducherry.

"We crossed $1 billion in mobile sales in India some time ago," said Huckfeldt, without disclosing when the company surpassed the milestone. Xiaomi recently said that its calendar year sales crossed $1 billion in sales in India in 2016. Huckfeldt said Moto is regaining strength in most Western markets, Asean, Brazil and Mexico, with its premium positioning. Moto gained 7 percentage points marketshare in Brazil last year; it now has 17% marketshare in the premium segment and 25% overall among smartphone sales.

Huckfeldt said two years ago most smartphone makers were making losses, but much of the industry is profitable now.