Google unveiled a major surprise this week when it announced its decision to sell Motorola Mobility to Lenovo, a Chinese company that has conquered the laptop market and is already making strides in mobile. The deal still hasn’t been approved by the U.S. government, but Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang already has big plans for the company.
In an interview with Fortune, Yuanqing Yang says that his company seeks to replicate its ThinkPad success with Motorola. Fresh from signing a $2.91 billion deal with Larry Page to acquire Google’s Motorola unit, Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang spoke to Motorola employees for 45 minutes at the latter company’s headquarters outside of Chicago on Thursday. Immediately after that meeting, Yang discussed the deal and Lenovo’s plans to compete in the smartphone market with Fortune. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation.