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Motorola president and COO Rick Osterloh took to Twitter this afternoon to update the world the manufacturer’s progress, and the dent they’re slowly making in the world’s smartphone marketshare. According to Osterloh, Motorola appears to be on the up-and-up, reporting a total of 6.5 million devices shipped in Q1 2014. While that’s nothing to sneeze at, technically, we don’t know how many of those devices were actually sold.
By comparison, Samsung sold over 10 million devices it’s first 30 days with the Galaxy S4, with Samsung’s senior vice president of product strategy Yoo Han-kil mentioning in an interview that the Galaxy S5 sales surpassed even those numbers. For the iPhone 5s/5c, Apple saw 9 million in sales its opening weekend. Why even bring up these numbers? It’s not to knock Motorola. If nothing more, it’s just to help illustrate how insanely far ahead market share leaders like Samsung and Apple are from the competition.
Looking out on the horizon, Motorola is gearing up to release their new smartwatch, the Motorola Moto 360, one of the first of its kinds to feature Google’s new Android Wear mobile OS. There’s also rumors of an LTE equipped Moto G and an even lower-priced Moto E in the works, as well as a refreshed Moto X that’s all but certain to release this summer. Should be a good year for Motorola and we’ll continue pulling for them.
I’ll be laid back waiting on the Moto X+1’s debut as well as the potential for a SGS5 Prime and LG G3.
What about the next Nexus?
Well, depending on who you ask, there may or may not be a “next Nexus.” I wouldn’t mind holding out for that, either. I’m currently running the Nexus 5 so anything is possible.
Is it fair to compare Motorola’s numbers for Q1 2014 with launch months of the Galaxy S4 and iPhone 5s/5c? It would be more fair to compare sales of those devices over the same period. The Moto G was launched a month before this period and the Moto X almost six months.
Good point.
They did well for themselves. They’re too small to really be compared to two different juggernauts of the phone industry. Going to the low end and midrange markets may prove to be what saves them.
I think that’s really impressive when their flagship launched over 8 months ago and the moto g is a budget device. Like others have said I’d like to see similar numbers at this point in the life of a device.
Nice to see Motorola becoming relevant again. Lord knows they had plenty of problems with their earlier android phones. Photon, Atrix, Bionic, I’m looking at you.
It’s a shame they aren’t more popular, but to be fair the Moto X is the first truly worthwhile phone they’ve made since the StarTac.
Hopefully they’ll make a Moto X-2 and carry on the momentum. The size of the Moto X is perfect and the near-stock Android experience along with fast updates make it the only phone I’d buy outside a Nexus.
My biggest concern with Motorola is Lenovo. What we are seeing with the Moto X and Moto G is Google’s influence. Will Lenovo keep that momentum?
The OG Droid and it’s many owners would seriously disagree with you.