Motorola To Offer Low-cost Handsets In Emerging Markets

by Darren

Motorola realizes they’re way behind the competition in market share, and a good reason for that has been their reluctance to offer low-costs handsets in emerging markets.

Motorola will introduce cheap phones, priced as low as $25 or less, for low-end consumers in emerging markets to capture the rapid growth in that segment, acting Chief Financial Officer Thomas Meredith told reporters at the opening of a new R&D center in Beijing.
“In parts of the world, the biggest growth segment is the very low tier and we are largely absent, and we will fix that in the near term,” Meredith said.
China is adding around 5 million mobile subscribers a month on an already huge base of over 500 million subscribers, and India is adding around 6 to 7 million subscribers a month, said Motorola Asia Pacific President Simon Leung.

Motorola says their new total of R&D centers in China is now 18. Even though they seem late to the game, it’s apparent this strategy should help boost sales of units, which Motorola needs so they don’t slip too much further in market share.