Nick Sutrich is from Android Central.
What names come to mind when you think of successful companies? Maybe even Google, right? Over the years, a well-known company that fell off the wagon has slowly been gaining steam again, catching up with and surpassing nearly everyone in the market.
After a year of rapid growth, the company has achieved the title of number three in the U.S. This didn't happen on the back of the new phone.
It wasn't the success of foldables, powerful phones, or even uniquely sustainable phones that drove the success of the company. Quite the opposite.
The success of boring, everyday phones that do little more than meet expectations at an affordable price was the reason for it.
I had a conversation with Doug Michau, executive director of North American business development at Motorola, about the company's business strategy, its 2021 portfolio, and what the future could bring for the venerable phone manufacturer.
The story is not sexy.
It is not filled with intrigue or daring. It proves that even a felled figure can make a comeback in a big way. The company makes some of the best cheap phones in the world, and it's here where the story begins.
I have the power.
The source of the information is the Android Central.
The Moto G Power is a $200 phone that's not exciting at first glance but, according to Michau, it nails the points that consumers care about in this price range. The Moto G Power (2022) is a device with a big screen and long battery life.
The reality of the importance of this device becomes apparent when you look at the market, even though one might wonder why such a phone merits an event in order to launch it.
During the best of times before the year 2021, Counterpoint Research says that the market share of Motorola was a single-digit. The company barely made a blip on the radar before it was banned by the Chinese government.
The last 24 months have seen a lot of changes in the U.S. smartphone landscape. Two of its biggest rivals in the business were designated as national threats by the U.S. government. Many consumers are wary of purchasing from these companies after having their reputations damaged, but you can still buy phones from these companies.
Other companies likeHTC have pivoted to virtual reality and other markets where they still have a foothold, while companies likeLG have stopped making phones. All of the big rivals in the U.S. have pulled out, leaving room for the company to quietly build up strength.
In the second quarter of 2021, the company expects to ship 12% of all smartphones to U.S. customers. If you compare that with the amount of shipments for Q4 2020 by the company, you'll see how much has changed in a short period of time.
It's not a long time for a phone's research and development to be done. The specifics of each phone's development timeframe might differ, but a company the size of Motorola can't change the direction of its trajectory in the time span of just 12 months or so.
Michau said that the company had switched to an "always-on marketing campaign" in lieu of changing market conditions, so that its portfolio of phones was seen months after their debut.
In the long run, it appears that the right portfolio of devices has been put together by the company to make significant headway in the market. It's not clear how much of this was intentional and how much was just a happy accident, but it's a success that would be good for the company.
There is a stumbling block of innovation.
Nick Sutrich is from Android Central.
The company often uses the term "meaningful innovation" to describe its efforts on its mid-range and entry-level phones, words that often feel hollow in the face of the competition. The Moto Edge is fine in a bubble but overshadowed by the competition.
Over the years, I've found that the company that has been interesting to me is Moto. The Moto Z line of phones, the Moto X back in the day, and the stunning retro-chic Moto RAZR 5G stand out among the crowd of slabs on every store shelf.
The market is clearly showing that expensive and unique phones aren't what consumers need right now. After more than a year and a half of job losses and the chaos caused by the global Pandemic, people don't need a new phone. They need a phone that works for a dollar.
"Your dollars are best spent on a product that gives you more benefit with all the features and the quality of the product," Michau said.
This is where some of the competitors have struggled in the past. The company that used to offer a flagship phone for $400 has gone far into the "proper" flagship after seemingly no time at all and now sells its phones for $1,000.
The company's re-entry back into the mid-range segment that has been dominated by Moto has been given a boost by the introduction of the Nord 2 and the Nord series.
In September of last year, International Data Corporation showed that 70% of phones shipped were in the entry level to mid-range categories. Most consumers were not willing to spend more than $400 on a new phone, and that data appears to have been correct throughout most of the year.
It's pretty clear why the company has been so successful this year, because only one of their upcoming releases costs more than $400.
A year without a flagship.
Nick Sutrich is from Android Central.
The company failed to launch a true flagship phone in 2021. Michau's answer was to point out the stagnation of innovation in the market as a whole. He said that they didn't have the right product for the U.S. market.
It seems like that speaks volumes about the lengths that the company is willing to go to produce a product that consumers will actually buy. We may never know if reality matches up with this year's realization of the folly of releasing imperfect flagship products, or if the supply chain constraints placed on everyone and everything played a larger part.
At last week's event, the company announced a new initiative called 312 Labs, which is designed to further entrench the company in research, design, engineering, and general innovation of products coming to market.
Michau said that part of the plan to double the R&D budget was to funnel more of it into the 312 Labs.
312 Labs isn't a physical "lab" per se, but it is a way for the two companies to push out better products in a more expedient manner. Many of these products might not even be phones, as evidenced by the announcement of the new platform and the involvement of the companies on the project.
We're not getting a new foldable from the company this year and may not see one next year, but it's likely that we could see something far more interesting from the company in 2022.
The brand is still popular because people still have a deep emotional attachment to it, and it's trying to keep people guessing about what's next.
The lack of a flagship this year doesn't seem to be hurting the company in any real way, but we pointed out last year that the company needs to continue to work on supporting its products long-term instead of just marketing.
