'No-one wants an ugly phone' says Moto
17-11-2005
by Charlie Taylor

Motorola is capitalising on the phenomenal success it has enjoyed with its Razr V3 phone by launching a number of new designer mobiles in the Irish market.

At a press briefing held in Dublin on Wednesday, representatives from the company showed off a range of new mobiles which are to be introduced in the coming months. These include a new pebble shaped phone and a 3G version of the V3 which will include a two-megapixel camera.

Motorola, which is the world's second largest mobile manufacturer, admitted that in the wake of the popularity of the Razr it is willing to sacrifice features in order to come up with misspelled mobiles that look good. Therefore in the wake of the Razr and the Rokr, punters can look forward to a number of new well-designed phones including the Pebl and the Slvr.

However, it would seem that there's a price to pay because while the phones may look good it's highly likely that they won't boast anywhere near as many features as those offered by competitors.

"Motorola has shifted its perspective from a technology focus to one in which design is at the heart of what we do," said Michael Karasinski, European director of product marketing, Motorola, speaking at the press event.

Admitting that the company had given up chasing rivals who were looking to produce phones with five megapixel cameras onboard, he added, "we have sacrificed some features in some of our phones in favour of design. The market is now so competitive and consumers have so much choice that the most important focus now is how good looking a phone is because no one wants to buy an ugly phone."

The launch of the Razr last year would seem to offer evidence of this. The phone has arguably proven as successful for the company as the iPod has for Apple with Motorola selling over 12 million Razrs since it hit the market. More than six million units were shipped in the third quarter of 2005 alone and the firm claims to have sold around 40,000 models in Ireland so far.

On the back of Razr sales, the company now has 19 percent of the worldwide market for mobile phones, its highest share for some years. Meanwhile in Ireland it holds around 20 percent of the market.

In October the company reported record earnings of USD9.42 billion in the third quarter, up from USD7.5 billion the previous year. During the same period, net earnings for the manufacturer rose almost fourfold to USD1.75 billion.

Given the success of the Razr it's hardly surprising that like Apple, the company is seeking to milk it for all its worth. Over the past year Motorola has launched a number of different coloured versions of the Razr, the newest of which is a bright pink one which was launched last week and has some 16,000 sales in the UK and Ireland.

Also newly launched is the Razr V3x, a 3G version of the company's best selling mobile phone. Moreover, the manufacturer is also capitalising on its reputation for design with the Pebl, a newly designed phone which is due for release early next year.

In addition, the firm announced the launch of two new 3G phones, the E770v and the E1070, and the Motorola L7, L2, SLVR and V360, all of which should be available over the coming months.