Motorola won’t launch phones under Rs 10\,000 in India anymore

Motorola won’t launch phones under Rs 10,000 in India anymore

“Motorola has been losing steam in the Indian market with its handsets shipment declining by 70 percent year-on-year (YoY) in 2018”

Motorola was off to a flying start when it made a comeback with Android-powered smartphones back in 2014. The phonemaker produced some value-for-money smartphones such as Moto E series, Moto G4, and Moto G5 that were an instant hit in the Indian market. However, that’s not the case anymore. Lately, Motorola has been losing steam in the Indian market with its shipment declining 70 percent year-on-year (YoY) in 2018. As a result, the company officially stepped away from the sub-Rs 10,000 segment of the Indian smartphone market, Prashanth Mani Managing Director Motorola Mobility India told IANS.

Motorola-One-Vision-10
Motorola One Vision – brand’s latest smartphone in India

Asked if the company was mulling to discontinue any particular Moto or Lenovo series, Mani told IANS: “Not specifically any series, but there were products in sub-Rs 10,000 category which we exited.” Does that mean it’s the end of Moto E series that the vendor launches in the segment? Well, partially. The company says that it’ll not launch a smartphone in the category unless there is profitability. “Unless we see it profitable, we will not launch in that category in India — that’s the principal policy,” he said. It has been over a year since Motorola has refreshed the series – the last smartphone in the lineup was Moto E5. 

Moto-E5-Plus-FI-02.jpg
Moto E5 Plus

Moreover, Motorola wants to expand its reach in the online market to improve its market share, which according to Counterpoint Research, has from the sixth spot in 2017 to the 12th in 2018 in the competitive Indian market. “Our current focus is to grow the business in online space where we see opportunities. We do not require any specific headcount to grow the business. We operate in the dual channel — both offline and online — and we would continue to have a very strong partnership with Flipkart,” Mani added.

The company is also planning to make India an export hub. “We are not saying that we are looking to export from the profitability standpoint, but, supply chain efficiencies are always important. Firstly, we wanted to have the opportunity to export products outside India,” said Mani. It’ll be interesting to see if the new strategy will help the Lenovo-owned Motorola once again become the force it used to be not so long ago.