Motorola to persist with ‘online only’ sales mode

Colin Giles, Head of Worldwide Sales at Motorola.

Motorola, which intends to strengthen its footprint in the Indian smartphone market, said it would not look at offline mode to increase market penetration. The company, which had partnered online retailer Flipkart for India sales, also said it was not exploring partnership with any other e-tailers.

Xiaomi offline

The company’s decision to stay online comes at a time when the Chinese major Xiaomi is looking at the brick-and-mortar model to garner market share. According to reports, Xiaomi, which entered India via online, has partnered with The Mobile Store and also with mobile operator Airtel.

“India is a very large and world’s fast-growing market. Any company that wants to be successful in the global market has to be successful in India. The country has leapfrogged technology and the idea of going to consumer through e-commerce was exciting for us. The partnership with Flipkart is doing good and we will continue to maintain that,” said Colin Giles, Head of Worldwide Sales at Motorola.

India practices

He also said the company was planning to take some of the India practices to other markets.

Motorola, which was acquired by PC maker Lenovo in October last for $2.91 billion, also said the brand Motorola would remain independent in the Indian market. With the completion of the acquisition, the Chinese company is creating an integrated manufacturing and supply-chain operations for both companies, where it will also produce Motorola smartphones.

According to the senior official, the Chinese company Lenovo will sell Motorola and Lenovo smartphones in the domestic market through a different channel strategy. However, in markets such as North America and Latin America, Lenovo will sell only the Motorola-brand smartphones, while in some of the Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, it will only sell Lenovo smartphones. As part of its new strategy, Motorola has re-entered the Chinese market.

“We will sell Lenovo and Motorola separately in India and in markets such as Brazil, China, Russia as these markets offer huge opportunities for both brands,” said Mr. Giles.

In India, Lenovo and Motorola put together enjoys around 7 per cent market share, added the company. On Monday, Motorola said it had started taking pre-orders on Flipkart for the new Moto E 4G variant for the Indian market and is priced at Rs.7,999.