Devices ready for 5G, work on all bands: Motorola’s Mani
Prashanth Mani, MD of Motorola Mobility India said that about half of Motorola's smartphone models support 5G and will function on all networks
Around half of Motorola smartphone models are 5G-enabled, and will work on all networks, such as the standalone (SA) mode deployed by Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel’s non-standalone (NSA) mode, said Prashanth Mani, managing director, Motorola Mobility India.
The handset maker popular for its foldable smartphones is eyeing a 5% share in the Indian smartphone market within the 12 months as 5G adoption picks up pace. “We are the only brand offering all eight bands on all our 5G devices and just not for premium models,” Mani said in an interview. “In the ₹10,000-20,000 price point many brands cut corners, but we did not.” he said.
The smartphone maker’s comments come at a time telecom service providers have launched 5G services in pockets across key metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Varanasi, however, many users owning iPhones and Samsung devices have flagged that they have not been able to experience 5G speeds or services due to smartphone incompatibility.
Motorola which is aiming to clock a 5% market share in the coming quarters as it banks on the growth of 5G devices, has 5G phones available upwards of ₹13,000 and 40-45% of its portfolio of smartphones is 5G ready.
Having experienced more than 100% growth in revenues in the past two years and intends to focus more on the premium segment of devices, which is above ₹40,000. The broader model range will help it gain value as well as volume market share. It has partnered with online seller Flipkart to improve its online sales.
The brand will make additional investments into manufacturing, through manufacturing partners Dixon Technologies’ subsidiary Padget Electronics for smartphones through the performance linked incentive (PLI) scheme and licensed Lava International for making 100,000 featurephones every quarter.
“We’re already exporting to North America through Dixon and we’re ramping up featurephone production with Lava as well,” Mani said.
While Motorola is not amongst the top tier players in India in terms of market share, it intends to change the mindset of customers by offering data security as an added feature on top of 4G and 5G devices to set itself apart from the crowd.
The smartphone maker provides Thinkshield security, which is basically a multi-layer security solution on the hardware and the software, on all its smartphones, starting with the G series. Motorola’s Strongbox technology which is actually a physical chip on its premium Edge series devices will further improve data security on the devices.
“As 5G grows, the use cases will grow for consumers, data consumption will grow and data security will continue to become more and more important, so we have been anticipating that and we’ve been working on that for the past two to three years,” Mani added.
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