It’s been no secret that there has been a lot of news, recently, about Motorola’s problems in the mobile phone market. There have been many, many news stories, where people have expounded at great length, about what they feel is the imminent demise of Motorola.
Is it necessarily the case, though? Perhaps we need to take an objective look at the situation, and see if we can work out some rational conclusions. In which case, I shall switch off my humour mode, and treat this story with the seriousness it deserves.
One of the key issues facing Motorola is to do with its line of mobile phones; specifically, the perception that Motorola phones are samey and boring. A mere few years ago, it’s fair to say that Motorola changed the landscape of the mobile world with one handset. The RAZR. It proved mobile phones didn’t need to be bulky or ungainly, but could be elegant and slim.
The problem is, though, that Motorola haven’t deviated very much from that design blueprint ever since. Even the Motorola RAZR2 V8 looks broadly similar to the old RAZR. And there’s the problem. Not that Motorola make boring mobile phones, because they make some very, very nice ones, but that the public’s perception of their products is as ‘boring’. Which is an unenviable position for them to be in, because let’s not forget, people’s perceptions affect what they buy, and if your product makes them go “meh”, they won’t buy it.
After all, Siemens went down the pan, because their mobile phones were perceived as being poorly built and unreliable (it didn’t help that in Siemens’ case, however, the perception was accurate).
Motorola didn’t help themselves, either, with their poor showing at the Mobile World Congress, showing only 1 top-end handset, and 2 budget mobile phones that no-one really cared about. But there is one territory where Motorola still has a massive penetration, and that’s the USA (a market where, significantly, Nokia aren’t as powerful. An opportunity, right there, methinks…)
One could argue that in America, the market is being kept artificially backwards, because service providers like AT&T and Verizon are selling purely on tariff, and locking people into 2 year contracts with an out-of-date phone. That certainly seems true according to Ewan’s travels through America on SMS Text News, but as we’ve seen the iPhone is rapidly changing the American mobile marketplace. So, the landscape is changing, even there.
Let’s hope new CEO Greg Brown can get Motorola to change with it, because it’d be a real shame if they die out altogether. Even if they’re bought by another company, I get the distinct sense they do have some great ideas hidden away.
They just need to get out from under the safety blanket of the RAZR brand. Then they could rock the world again.
You want a Motorola? Get yourself the nicest, the Motorola Z10!
March 11th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Motorola phones have always been more design-focused than anything. It’s actually a good market strategy, because the features on mobiles these days are completely useless to some people, especially of the older generation who just want a phone they can make calls with and send text messages. Because of this, they’re more likely to buy a phone that looks good rather than look at it’s confusing specifications. Price is a factor too, people do not want to spend £200 on a phone that they’re only going to use for basic functions.
However, if Motorola really want to penetrate the market they need to come up with some very high-end devices that focus less on aesthetics and more on features. A 5 Megapixel RIZR? That’ll do nicely.