Motorola is set to launch a new smartphone tomorrow. The Moto G is expected to be a lower-priced companion to the Moto X, which has failed to gain much traction in the market so far. The G of course stands for Google, which owns Motorola, and analysts say that Google’s deep pockets mean that Motorola can offer a competitive smartphone at a very low price if it wants to.
The Moto G is expected to sport a slightly smaller screen than the Moto X (4.5 inches versus 4.7 inches), and to have a somewhat slower Snapdragon processor — 1.2GHz vs. 1.7GHz. Pricing is not known yet, although a version of the Moto G appeared over the weekend on Amazon’s UK website priced at $255, without a contract. Like the Moto X, the Moto G will probably be made in the United States.
Motorola has already cut the price of the Moto X to $100 with a two year contract, leaving carriers little room to offer a lower-priced version of the phone on-contract. It is possible that the Moto G will primarily target the prepaid market. But a deeply discounted high-end Android phone could rub some of Google’s hardware partners the wrong way.
“Google at the moment is treading a fine line between friend and foe in the Android ecosystem,” said Neil Mawston of Strategy Analytics. “Googorola must be mindful not to under-cut rivals on price because this could unsettle major hardware partners in the Android ecosystem, like Samsung.”
But with 75% of the smartphone market, Android is ubiquitous and fast access to updates is important to smartphone makers. Samsung arguably needs Google at least as much as Google needs Samsung.
