Lenovo is expecting sales of Motorola phones to make up 40 per cent of its total smartphone shipments in the coming fiscal year beginning 1 April, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In the current fiscal year, the figure stood at 30 per cent of the total 85 million smartphones sold by Lenovo and Motorola.

Lenovo closed its $2.9 billion acquisition of Motorola from Google last October and earlier this week announced that Motorola smartphones will once again be sold in China, as well as other markets.

Liu Jun, president of Lenovo’s mobile business group, speaking on the sidelines of the  Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, said he has “a plan to ramp up Motorola”.

“The most challenging part is not only that we need to integrate the business, but we have to turn around the business quickly. So we have a very aggressive plan,” he commented.

He added that prices of the phones sold by each brand will vary. Motorola devices will be priced at more than $400 while Lenovo smartphones will be below that figure.

Although, according to Liu Jun, Lenovo will focus on sales growth as opposed to cost cutting, plans are under way to manufacture Motorola phones in Lenovo’s own factory, rather than contract firms.

According to Strategy Analytics, Lenovo captured 5 per cent market share of global smartphone shipments in Q3 2014, while Motorola captured 3 per cent. The combined 8 per cent share put it above the current number three player Xiaomi, after Apple and Samsung.

In China, Motorola will face fierce competition, with homegrown companies like Xiaomi and Huawei expecting to ship at least 100 million smartphones in 2015.

The three new devices that Motorola announced for China — the Moto X, new Moto X Pro (pictured) and the Moto G, which supports LTE — are the first to be introduced by the company in the country since 2012, after Google withdrew the vendor from the market in 2013.

All three models will go on sale early this year.