Motorola Mobility is pleased with the way its online sales model with Flipkart has worked out in India and plans to continue with the same strategy for sale of its upcoming devices in the near future. In the last five months, since it re-entered the Indian market, Motorola has sold over a million devices through its online partner Flipkart. This year, the company plans to bring its Moto 360 smartwatch to the country, which, the company hopes, will prove to be another major gamechanger in the smartphone market in the country.
Amit Boni, GM, Motoral Mobility, India declines to give any specific timelines for the launch of the smartwatch. The company is touting the Moto 360 smartwatch’s round face design and premium build material. The smartwatch will also include health-related apps as well such as pedometers and heart rate monitors. LG has also announced its G Watch, which is also powered by Android Wear and Samsung has launched Galaxy Gear recently. The smartwatch market is just starting to pick up, he says. The company is yet to reveal the pricing of the Moto 360. The smartwatch features include the ?OK Google? feature that allows users to just say the command (Ok Google) and do a voice search, send a text, get directions or even play a song.
“The online sales model has worked well for the company in India. The concept of touch and feel is over rated in my opinion. The taxation is pretty high in some markets and going through several layers of distribution also adds to the cost. Through this model, the price savings to the consumer come up to Rs 3000-5,000 per device,” Boni claims. Online buyers include young professionals to people in the age group of 50.
Motorola has replicated its India success story in Indonesia. “The e-commerce market is growing 300% y-o-y in India and India is among the fastest growing markets in Asia, ahead of China. The online model works in markets where the duty structure is pretty high and internet penetration is also high, which is also the case in Indonesia,” he said.
Last month, the company started selling its Moto G phones in Indonesia only through online portal Lazada, backed by German investor Rocket Internet.
Motorola has enabled 120 locations to provide product warranty and repair service throughout India. This way, we can control customer experience, says Boni. Other cellphone markets that have taken the online route include Alcatel, Xiaomi, Samsung and and Karbon.
At present, Motorola sells three models in India: the Moto E for Rs 6,999; Moto G for Rs 10,499 for the 8GB model and Rs 11,999 for the 16 GB model; and the flagship Moto X which is available for Rs 23,999.
Globally, Motorola sells two other models exclusively for Verizon Wireless. Last quarter, Motorola sold 9 million units globally.
