It's been an interesting last few months for Motorola, considering the acquisition by Lenovo and the subsequent bolting to Dropbox by its former CEO Dennis Woodside. Thus the company's Mobile World Congress 2014 (MWC 2014) media event in Barcelona had everyone wondering what was next. The short answer is nothing earthshattering for now, but the main takeaways were this:
• The company indicated that future smartphone launches from the pair would more likely be in the $100 price range (a la the Moto G) rather the $400 price tag we saw for the Moto X. Certainly not surprising news seeing as all the growth in the smartphone category over the next several years is expected to be in the more value-driven space and moving away from the market's premium device past.
The company's senior vice president Rick Osterloh addressed the gathering when asked directly about where the smartphone market was headed by saying, "The days of $650 smartphones are coming to an end."
• Osterloh was just as blunt and candid when the conversation turned to the wearable technology market as Motorola has been rumored to be coming to market with a smartwatch device - a rumor that pre-dates the Lenovo acquisition. Calling existing options in this space "all extremely ugly", Osterloh didn't offer any additional specifics on the Motorola's future play here but a comment like that certainly puts the pressure on the product design team to step away from the look of much of the current wearable technology fare.
The two companies - Lenovo and Motorola - do form an interesting union and should benefit from each other's strengths as Lenovo's extremely sharp focus on the mobile world is a nice match with Motorola's established brand name in the more developed markets.
Motorola's market share in the smartphone category in the U.S. market continues to shrink despite the launch of last year's Moto X. Recent numbers from NPD suggest the company's U.S. smartphone share numbers dropped from 11 percent to 8.5 percent from Q4 2012 to Q4 2013.
Final impressions: that next Motorola smartphone most certainly better be affordable and that smartwatch product best be very attractive.
