NEW DELHI: Motorola, which stopped selling phones in India around two years ago after it was acquired by Google, will re-enter the Indian market in January with Moto G, a smartphone developed specifically for developing markets.
The company is promising that Moto G will be unlike any other smartphone in the market. The key feature of the phone is its low price. In the US, the device is priced at $179 (around Rs 11,500) and the Indian price is expected to be less than Rs 15,000. But in terms of hardware and software features, the phone is ahead of similarly-priced Android or Windows Phone devices sold by companies like Samsung, Nokia, LG, Sony and HTC.
“Most people in the world can’t afford $500 or $600 phones. The average smartphone price nowadays is around $200. But the problem is that the experience that the phones in this class provide is really really bad. These (affordable) smartphones are slow, buggy and their screens are too small,” said Denis Woodside, CEO of Motorola Mobility. “In the next one year over 500 million consumers will buy a smartphone that costs less than $200. We believe half a billion people deserve better.”
Moto G has a 4.5-inch screen with 720P HD resolution, a quad-core processor running at 1.2GHz, 8GB internal storage (16GB version also available), 1GB RAM, 5MP primary camera and a 1.3MP front camera. Punit Soni, Motorola VP for product management, claimed that Moto G will be faster than Samsung Galaxy S4, a premium phone, in many tasks because it runs a largely unmodified version of Android.
“Moto G costs less than one third of the price of Galaxy S4 and Apple iPhone 5S. Yet, it outperforms these devices in many tasks,” said Woodside.
For Motorola, India, where affordable Android phones that offer good experience are a rarity, seems like the perfect market for Moto G. “At the moment Moto G is the only product plan for India that I can share,” William Moss, global head for communications at Motorola told TOI.
He added, “As for re-entering India, we never left. One of our largest international offices is still in India!”
India’s affordable smartphone market is dominated by Samsung and local players like Micromax and Carbonn. Multinationals like Samsung and Sony rely on their brand image to sell their mainstream phones, even though they do not pack in the cutting-edge technologies. Local brands rely on superior hardware specifications to push sale but cannot match the big firms in aftersales support and quality control. With Moto G, Motorola hopes to match the devices sold by local companies in terms of specifications as well offer an assurance of good aftersales support. Post a commentALSO ON TOI
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Motorola will re-enter the Indian market in January with Moto G, a smartphone developed specifically for developing markets.
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