5000 yen Motorola + suggesting the introduction of smartphones + Is it a smart low price war that Google can watch?

A smartphone of $ 179 (about 19,000 yen) "Moto G"There is also a high performance that is not suitable for its low price, and since its launch, sales are very good. I released that MotoGMotorolaCEO of the company hinted at launching a smartphone with a price of $ 50 (about 5200 yen). Although Motorola and its parent company Google appear to place importance on the low-priced smartphone market, what strategies are behind the low price market development?

Motorola confirms plans to launch £ 30 smartphone - News - Trusted Reviews
http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/motorola-confirms-plans-to-launch-30-smartphone

Motorola CEO criticises Apple over iPhone price - News - Trusted Reviews
http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/motorola-ceo-criticises-apple-over-iphone-price

The Official Motorola Blog: Goodbye Sticky. Hello Ara.
http://motorola-blog.blogspot.jp/2013/10/goodbye-sticky-hello-ara.html

Motorola's CEO Dennis Woodside said,Trusted Reviews"When Apple first released the iPhone, the price was $ 650 (about 68,000 yen), but the price of the iPhone still remains at $ 650. Due to the spread of smartphones, the price of parts is large Despite falling, "criticized Apple selling the iPhone. Woodside CEO predicted that the price of smartphone parts will continue to decline in the future, and revealed that the price of high-performance, high-quality smartphones will change dramatically.

◆Low price smartphone market
To embody this Woodside CEO's remarks, Motorola seems to promote a "high performance and low price" line as a sales strategy for smartphones. Moto G continues to sell at a momentum to open up a low-priced smartphone market by realizing a price of $ 179 (about 19,000 yen) while minimizing performance degradation even though it does not reach high specs It is.


In addition, Woodside CEO to Trusted Reviews, "The success of Moto G revealed that the smartphone market under $ 179 (about 19,000 yen) is huge.Motorola will be able to offer a lower market "We do not have any reason why smartphone prices can not be reduced to 50 dollars (about 5200 yen)," he said, implying a smartphone release of a price of $ 50.

Woodside CEO did not disclose details on how to release cheap smartphones in what way, but the cheapest price of smartphones ever made by SamsungGalaxy PocketBecause it is $ 75 (about 7800 yen), if you realize it will update the low price record of the smartphone.

◆Strategy at high price range
Motorola plans to focus on lower price lines as well as to develop high priced machine markets, where we plan to make "customizability" more attractive. Woodside CEO said, "Even with customization of smartphones, users can not customize finely to the screen size and performance, as it is currently in the state that users can choose exterior colors and materials.With expectation for the next model at best, There is only one way to wait. "It is my intention to promote a high-priced model by giving users plenty of options to finely customize smartphones to their liking.

Motorola said last year, "PhonebloksProject that brings hardware and open platforms to smartphones by organizing tags with the project "Project Ara"Is started. The high customizability emphasized by CEO Woodside may be realized by this Project Ara.

The state of "open platform hardware customization" advocated by Project Ara can be confirmed in the following movie.

Phonebloks - The next step - YouTube


◆What Motorola + goals
Woodside CEO did not tell me in detail how Motorola can sell $ 50 (about 5200 yen) smartphone, but the high customizability of Project Ara may be a big hint . Because Project Ara is aiming at my favorite smartphone customization, not targeting only high-performance models. For example, Project Ara can customize a smartphone of a divided style such as without a camera, no need to listen to music, tolerate small screens, only browse the Internet, etc. It is possible to customize $ 50 (about 5200 yen) It seems that the model of you is not impossible.


The philosophy of Project Ara is to introduce an open platform to hardware, so that hardware developmentecosystemTo build smartphones with higher performance and lower price by raising development speed and productivity. In other words, it can be said that it is an attempt to realize the same thing as the Android platform in smartphone software (OS) with hardware.

The parent company of Motorola is Google that has produced Android OS, It can be thought that Google aims to make smartphones open and platform with both software and hardware by Android OS and Project Ara. Creating smartphones with higher performance and lower prices through open platforms will promote the spread of smartphones in developing countries, lower the threshold for Internet accessDigital divideIt can lead to solving the problem.

As Google, which mainly consists of Internet advertising revenues, it is obvious that having the Internet available to everyone in the world will benefit the company. If that is the case, the price of the smartphone will fall, the future so that more people can use the smartphone is unlikely to hope, and it is reasonable that Google aims at this world.

ByJD Hancock

As a method of selling mobile terminals sometimes at a price low enough to be in deficit sometimes overlooking the benefits of hardware, Amazon also hasKindle seriesWe are entering. Considering smartphones as an entrance to the net world, if the move to expand the frontage will accelerate in the future, price competition of smartphone terminals may become increasingly intense.