Handset maker Motorola Mobility is banking on a strong brand recall and its online sales model for success in India, a market which it had quit in August 2012 and re-entered with Android smartphone Moto G and which could hold the key to the company's rebound globally.

The company that will soon be owned by Lenovo has had discussions with retailers who want to sell Motorola phones in India, where the brand still has strong consumer recall, said Magnus Ahlqvist, corporate vice-president, EMEA and APAC at Motorola Mobility.

"I have an open dialogue with many of the key players in the industry on the large format retail side and also with the operators. All of them are showing a lot of interest because they're all seeing that Motorola is a highly relevant brand for Indian consumers," said Ahlqvist.

The company is getting a lot of interest from retailers to stock its products - Moto G and Moto X, said Ahlqvist, adding that though it may consider options in the future, it will continue with its present strategy to sell online, which is working extremely well.

Motorola is the only handset seller in India which sells exclusively through online retailer Flipkart. It's first launch Moto G was sold out within hours of launch, prompting it to sell Moto X on the leading e-commerce portal last week, establishing a successful online-only sale model.

According to industry insiders, Motorola has sold tens of thousands of Moto G devices, the 16 GB variant of which is priced at Rs 13,999 and the 8GB at Rs 12,499 on Flipkart, making it one of the most attractive purchases. Ahlqvist declined to share the sales figures of Moto G and Moto X, which is available for purchase priced between Rs 23,999 and Rs 25,999.

The company was absent from India most of last year when smartphone sales exploded and cornered over 15% of the Indian mobile phone market. Indians bought over 41 million smartphones in 2013, according to research firm IDC.

The smartphone market is expected to rise to 60 million devices in 2014, which will make up about 40% of total mobile phones sales from the country, offering huge potential for Motorola Mobility.

Ahlqvist said that the company underwent a huge transformation in August 2012, after Google acquired Motorola's mobility business for $12.5 billion. "It required tough decisions in terms of reducing the number of products and business to a small number of markets but the forced change has helped it build business for the long term", he said, explaining Motorola's move to pull out of the India market.

 Motorola is reportedly set to launch its own range of smartwatches later this year.


The company's senior vice president Rick Osterloh said that the smartwatch would address consumer issues like style and battery life.

According to The Verge, Motorola's earlier wearable attempt, MotoACTV activity tracker, failed badly for its battery and appearance issues, however, the company has said that it would redirect its efforts in the wearables market.

With tech giants like Apple, Google, Samsung entering into the red-hot wearables market, Motorola can't help but join the bandwagon.

The report said that Motorola's revamped line of smartphones, the Moto X and Moto G, have received critical acclaim since their launches last year and if the company is able to release a smartwatch on the level of these phones, in terms of usability and ergonomics, it could as well be a hit.

The much awaited Moto G, Motorola's economy Android smartphone, has finally been launched in India. The phone has won accolades the world over for its low price and great performance combo, and for bringing the focus back to usability instead of high-end specifications, a trend Motorola started with the Moto X, its flagship smartphone. We try to find out if Moto G really lives up to the hype surrounding it, in our review.

What's in the box
Unlike the international version of the Moto G, the Indian version imported by Flipkart includes a charger and a headset. It doesn't include a USB cable so you'll need to buy one to transfer data to the phone. Other than these, you'll find the user manual and a warranty-related document. The Moto G comes with a standard black coloured back panel, but additional back panels in other colours can be ordered separately.



Build and design
One of the most striking things about the Moto G is its minimalist no-frills design. The phone's look is essentially based on Moto X which is not available in India at this moment.

Moto G feels good to hold despite it being heavy at 143 gram and a bit thick at 11.6mm due to its curved back and rounded corners that take care of ergonomics. The phone is made from plastic materials but feels durable. Although it comes with a removable back panel, the construction is excellent. The back panel fits snugly, with no creaks and wobbles.

At first glance, the only thing you notice is the Moto G's shiny black front panel devoid of any distractions. There's no branding and no hardware buttons. The 1.3MP front camera and a notification LED placed next to the earpiece are the only other components visible.

Turn on the phone, and the 4.5-inch 720p IPS edge-to-edge display comes to life bursting with pixels. The phone's front bezel is designed in a manner so as to put all the focus on the display, making it the centre of attention. On the sides, the bezel is pretty narrow, but it takes up considerable amount of space below the display, which is a good thing as the navigation controls are easily accessible.
There's a minor gap between the edge of the front panel, which is slightly raised, and the display that tends to attract dust particles. The edge may also be susceptible to wear and tear once you start using the phone. The display comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection guarding the screen against scratches. Moto G is the only phone in this price range to feature Gorilla Glass 3.

The right edge of the Moto G features the narrow Power/ Screen lock keys which are made of metal and offer decent tactile feedback. However, we wish the volume rocker key would have been a little longer as we ended up hitting the power key during the initial period of use.

The 3.5mm headset jack sits at the top while the micro-USB port is placed at the bottom edge of the phone. There are no ports or buttons on the left edge.

The back of the phone, which is essentially the removable back cover, is curved and sports a rubberized soft matte finish, that makes holding the phone a pleasant experience. It features the phone's 5MP rear camera lens, an LED flash and Motorola logo (in an indent). We also found the back prone to smudges, but it is thankfully easy to clean.

Moto G also comes with a nano-coating that makes is water resistant up to a certain level. It will be able to handle minor splashes, but most likely won't survive a dip in the pool.

Overall, the Moto G is a compact and durable no-frills smartphone that is built to last.

Software
The dual-sim version of Moto G available in India comes with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. Motorola has promised that the phone will get the Android 4.4 KitKat software update in the coming days. At the time of filing of this review, our Moto G unit had not received an update and was still running Jelly Bean.

Moto G runs an almost stock version of Android complete with on-screen navigation controls. The interface is close to Google's Nexus 4 except that Motorola also includes some of its own apps. Thankfully, these apps are not bloatware and add to functionality. One of the Motorola app called Assist changes how the phone alerts you during meetings or sleep. If you've used an iPhone, you must have used or come across the Do Not Disturb; Assist is similar and allows you to silence or auto reply to missed calls while you're in a meeting or sleeping. You can choose exceptions for Favourite callers or when someone calls twice.

Another Motorola app bundled with the phone is Moto Care. The app is not only a searchable user guide featuring Tutorials, FAQs, How-tos and actionable tips, it also offers a shortcut key to get in touch with Motorola's customer care. Motorola Migrate allows you to transfer content and settings from your old Android phone or iPhone.

The dual-sim Moto G also comes with settings for managing the behavior of two sim cards, allowing you to choose the default connection for data, calls and messaging.

That's about it. You get a pretty neat slate to customize as per your own preference and use the apps that you wish to.

The Android 4.4 KitKat update is expected to bring some minor cosmetic improvements including white notification icons and a transparent notification bar, a new Phone dialer app, some camera improvements in addition to other changes under the hood.

Camera
Moto G is an economy smartphone and despite the phone delivering more than what other smartphones in the price segment offer, the limitations are apparent when it comes to the camera.

The phone comes with a 5MP rear camera and a 1.3MP front facing camera. The rear camera can capture 720p video and also comes with an LED flash for taking pictures in low-light conditions.



Motorola ships its own camera app with the phone which is pretty bare bones when it comes to offering granular settings but designed keeping in mind the casual camera user. You'll only see two controls - one for switching to the video camera and the other to switch between the front and rear lenses till you swipe from the edge to the right side of the screen to reveal an arc shaped dial that features controls for HDR mode, LED flash, focus & exposure, slow motion, Panorama mode, geo-tagging, widescreen mode and shutter sound. Similar to the Windows Phone camera app, you click pictures by tapping anywhere on the screen. The soft viewfinder can be moved up and down to zoom in and out or shift focus.

We were pretty impressed by the images captured by the Moto G outdoors, during daylight. The images had good amount of detail, reproduced colour accurately and good contrast, especially in HDR mode. Pictures captured in low-light conditions and indoors were not that great but noise levels were comparatively lower than other phones in the same price range.


The rear camera can capture 720p video and we found the quality to be satisfactory.

The front camera comes in handy for taking selfies and for video chats, and does a decent job.

Performance
Moto G is known for offering the level of performance which is only delivered by phones costing Rs 10,000 more than it. At the heart of the phone is the 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor coupled with Adreno 305 graphics and 1GB RAM. We did not notice any lag whatsoever while navigating through the phone's menu, launching apps and switching between them.

We were able to play games like Temple Run 2, Banana Kong, and Asphalt 8 without encountering frame drops or freezes. Despite the limited RAM, the phone is a great gaming device.

In synthetic benchmarks, it beats competitors like the Micromax Canvas Turbo Mini by a margin. The phone scored 17,404 in Antutu, 8574 in Quadrant and 57.9 in Nenamark 2 benchmark tests. Some of these scores are better than the Nexus 4.



Out of the 16GB storage, 12.92GB is available to the user. Unfortunately, you can't expand the storage as the phone doesn't come with a memory card slot. Google is offering 50GB free cloud storage in Google Drive with the phone but we don't see cloud storage going mainstream till data connectivity gets better and data tariffs go cheaper.

Moto G offers Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS connectivity options. Interestingly, it comes with a trusted Bluetooth feature allowing you to disable lock screen when the phone is paired with a device specified as 'trusted.' This means you don't need to unlock the screen to change tracks when listening to music via Bluetooth headphones.

Moto G offers excellent call quality and signal reception and we did not encounter issues while making calls even in areas where cell signal is relatively weaker. The phone was able to lock to GPS without any hiccups.

Moto G offers FM radio but unfortunately, you can't listen to it through the phone's speaker even when you've plugged in the headphones to use as an antenna. It also doesn't offer a recording feature. We were able to play most popular video and audio file formats.

The external speaker on the phone offers loud sound output though it lacks bass. Of course the sound gets muffled when the phone lies on its back, which is an issue.

The phone is backed by a 2070 mAh battery and will last you a complete day even if you put the screen brightness at the highest level and use 3G data all the time. You'll be able to make about 2-3 hours of phone calls, play some casual games and browse the web in this time period. The phone can play video continuously for 7 to 8 hours.

Overall, the Moto G offers impressive performance and using it as our daily driver turned out to be a pleasant experience.

Verdict
There has been a vacuum in the Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 price segment when it comes to quality Android smartphones. Indian brands do somewhat fill the gap but the after-sales experience has left many customers high and dry. Also, the build quality and finish of these devices leaves a lot to be desired.

The Moto G addresses this very segment delivering great performance at an affordable price. We would not shy away for calling it a value for money proposition as the phone is well built and comes with the promise of latest software. We hope Motorola (even after completion of its acquisition by Lenovo) continues to offer software updates and ensures good level of on-ground after sales support.

There's no other Android phone we can recommend in the price segment. If you're fine with Windows Phone and want a better camera, the Nokia Lumia 720 is a good option.

THE TIMES OF INDIA
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The Motorola Moto G is currently enjoying being the center of attraction in the mid-range mobile market, but another affordable device that goes by the name of Xolo Q1100 has arrived to hog a bit of its spotlight. Both the devices have a number of similar features and hence, we have pitted the two against each other to figure out which one you should go for.

The Xolo smartphone has only been unveiled in India and we are yet to hear something about its availability details. And as for the Motorola gadget, it hit pre-order status earlier this week and its first stock has already been sold out too. After the break, we have jotted down a detailed report of the specifications of the devices, so take a look.

Motorola Moto G:

The Moto G brings a set of advanced features for an economical price. Its front panel has been fitted with a 4.5-inch multi-touch screen capable of rendering HD visuals in 1280 x 720p resolution as well as 1.3MP webcam. And on the flip side you will find a 5MP camera complete with flash and auto focus amongst other things.

It has been powered by the Android Jelly Bean 4.3 OS and the gadget has already started receiving the KitKat update as well. A quad core processor sprinting at 1.2GHz as well as 1GB of RAM are responsible for facilitating multitasking, while a 2070mAh battery shoulders the responsibility of keeping it powered up for almost an entire day.

Key specs of the phone at a glance:

- 4.5-inch 720p touchscreen
- 5MP camera, 1.3MP webcam
- Android 4.3, upgradeable to KitKat 4.4
- 1.2GHz quad core Snapdragon 400 processor
- Dual SIM
- 2070mAh battery

Xolo Q1100:

The Xolo Q1100 can give the Moto G a run for its money considering that the gadgets are pretty similar to each other. But unlike the aforementioned device, this handset brings a 5-inch IPS OGS touchscreen of HD resolution and even boasts of an 8MP camera complete with LED flash and auto focus amongst other essential features.

You can expect the Jelly Bean 4.3 OS from this smartphone as well, but whether it is upgradeable or not is not known. A quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor resides within this smartphone as well and 1GB of RAM can also be found. Also, its total internal memory amounts to 8GB and you get the option of increasing it further by up to 32GB using a microSD card.

Key specs of the phone at a glance:

- 5-inch IPS OGS touchscreen
- 1280 x 720p resolution
- 8MP camera, 2MP webcam
- Android Jelly Bean 4.3 OS
- 1.4GHz quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 SoC
- 1GB of RAM
- 8GB onboard storage, 32GB expandability
- 2000mAh battery
- 3G talk time of 12.5 hours
- 143.8 x 70.8 x 8.3 millimeters

Conclusion:

The Motorola Moto G can now be purchased for Rs 12,499 (8GB) or Rs 13,999 (16GB), while the Xolo Q1100 will make you shell out Rs 14,999. The latter does come across as better than the former considering that it offers expandable memory, better camera as well as a bigger screen. So have you made up your mind? Do tell us.

After going out of stock within 15 minutes of opening 16GB Moto G orders for the first time and then in one hour the second time, Flipkart is officially left with no Moto G 16GB stock. The retailer has thus decided to open reservations for the 16GB version.

Flipkart wants interested buyers to book their Moto G 16GB units to avoid last minute rush, in case the next stock too goes poof within a matter of hours. It will also give the company an idea of the demand, which it clearly has under-estimated.

The retailer is giving an expected shipping time of 10-20 days. So, if you book a Moto G 16GB version now, your order will probably reach your doorstep around the last week of this month.

The 8GB version is still in stock and if you don’t need too much storage, you might want to grab it to avoid the unnecessary waiting period but be sure about it. To give you an idea, around 5.5GB of free space is available for app installation or media storage in the 8GB version, while you will get around 13.5GB free space in 16GB variant.

Sales estimate

We have carefully studied the import data and found that Flipkart has imported (yes, Flipkart is importing Moto G directly as there are no distributors involved) three shipments of Moto G until now.

As a part of these shipments, Flipkart has got a total of 10,900 units of 16GB version and 14,600 units of 8GB. As we already know that 16GB is totally out of stock, so Flipkart has sold out the entire stock of 10,900 (+/- some units).

We however don’t have a clear idea about 8GB sales as the version is still in stock with the e-retailer but when Flipkart had initially opened the sales of Moto G, it had got only two out of three shipments of Moto G, thus the quick sell-out. The third shipment cleared customs next morning and was put for sale around noon, which had 4,800 units of 8GB version (of the total 14,600 it received). So, if the first two shipments of Moto G were indeed sold out within an hour of putting them on sale at midnight, Flipkart has at least sold 9,800 units of 8GB version.

From our calculations (it is important to note that these are out calculation and not the official data), we have gathered that Flipkart has most probably sold a total of 10,900 units of 16GB version and 9,800 units of 8GB version till now, out of which the 16GB units were sold out in just over an hour.

Reuters : Fri Apr 19 2013, 08:37 hrs

Google Inc's core Internet business grew net revenue 23 percent in the first quarter, softening the effect of a sharp decline in its Motorola mobile phone division.

Shares of Google, which reached an all-time high of $844 in March, were up 1.5 percent to $777.75 in after hours trading on Thursday.

"Google eked out an acceptable quarter, but it wasn't easy," said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan.

Google's core search advertising business remains solid but unexciting, Rohan said.

He noted that Google's adjusted profit of $11.58 per share benefited from a significantly lower tax rate due to a retroactive research and development tax credit. Without that benefit, Rohan said Google would have missed Wall Street's earnings target of $10.66 per share.

The world's No.1 Internet search engine, Google has stepped up efforts to adapt its business to a rapidly changing technology landscape in which consumers are increasingly accessing the Web using mobile devices instead of PCs.

The company's Android operating system has leaped past Apple Inc's iPhone and its iOS software to become the most popular smartphone software, used on more than 70 percent of devices, according to industry research firm Gartner.

Google improved its cost-per-click, a critical metric that refers to the price advertisers pay the Internet search giant, in the first quarter. The CPC rate declined 4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, versus a 6 percent decline in the fourth quarter.

"It's classic Google. There's plenty of things to like and some things not to like," said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.

NEW PRODUCTS KEY TO FUTURE

Google CEO Larry Page spent much of the conference call discussing new products such as the Google Glass wearable computers and high-speed fiber networks that the company is developing, which he said were vital to the company's future success.

"If you look at most companies they never do anything different, and eventually they run into problems for that reason," said the 40-year-old Page, who co-founded Google in 1998 with Sergey Brin.

He said the new lineup of yet-to-be-released Motorola devices would offer a variety of improvements over current smartphones, with features such as longer battery life and better resistance to shattering or damage from spilled drinks.

For now however, the Motorola business continues to be a drag on Google's consolidated results, said Gillis of BGC Partners.

Revenue at the Motorola business, which Google acquired for $12.5 billion in May 2012, declined to $1.02 billion in the first three months of the year, from $1.51 billion in the fourth quarter. The Motorola business posted an operating loss of $271 million in the first quarter.

Google's main Internet business generated $9.99 billion in first-quarter net revenue, which excludes fees paid to partner websites, compared to $8.14 billion in the first quarter of 2012.

Seven analysts polled by Reuters had yielded an average forecast of $9.78 billion.

"There was nothing exceptional about the top line. But I think CPC rates are again incrementally a little bit better," said Needham & Co analyst Kerry Rice, referring to Google's cost per click rates.

Google's search ad rates have been under pressure as more consumers access its online services on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, where advertising rates are lower than on PCs.

In February, Google changed the way marketers run ad campaigns on Google, blurring the distinction between ads destined for PCs and mobile ads, in a move that some analysts believe could help bolster Google's overall ad prices.

Google also recently converted its shopping search feature to an all-advertising based system, in which retailers are required to buy ads featuring photos of their products in order to be included in the search results. More than one billion products are now listed, Google Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora said during the conference call.

Overall first quarter net income, including its money-losing Motorola Mobility mobile phone business, was $3.35 billion or $9.94 per share. That compares with net income of $2.89 billion or $8.75 per share in the year-ago period, before Google acquired Motorola.

Consolidated revenue in the first quarter was $13.97 billion, versus $10.65 billion in the year-ago period.

NDTV , April 12, 2013

Motorola X Phone has hit a delay and will not hit shelves before August, if a new report is to be believed. While the exact cause of the delay is not known, it now seems less likely that the phone would make an appearance at the Google I/O  event that is scheduled to take place in May.

The report by PhoneArena cites sources to inform that the Motorola X Phone is still in early prototype phase. The online publication had earlier reported that the X Phone was planned to be released around the end of June to early July.

Motorola X Phone has been in the news before when specifications of the device were leaked. The rumoured specs included a 4.8-inch screen of unknown resolution with sapphire glass for protection, a 2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and a 4000 mAh battery.

After that, a new render of a Motorola Android smartphone had surfaced online. The report had suggested that the phone will be powered by a Snapdragon 800 chipset and will sport a 4.7-inch display with a resolution of 768x1280 pixels. It had also stated that the phone will have a 4000 mAh battery and will run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean with a few customisations done by Motorola. The report also mentioned that the phone will be IP57 certified (water resistant) and feature a Gorilla Glass 3 screen, and that it won't have expandable memory.

There have been a lot of rumours surrounding the X Phone, including the fact that the X Phone might be a sub-brand and approach that includes user-defined configurations for colour, storage capacity, ringtones, apps and more. This intensified after Guy Kawasaki, who recently joined Motorola, had posted a video on his Google+ page about customisable cars and posted, "Wouldn't it be great if you could personalise your phone like this?"