AppleInsider Staff
Motorola's next handset will be Made in America, as the Google-owned manufacturer looks to make a comeback in a market dominated by Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy line.
For months, rumors and speculation have circulated that Motorola was planning a gamechanging 'X phone' aimed at clawing back share in a smartphone market where Apple and Samsung take all of the profit. Now the manufacturer has announced that its next flagship device, the Moto X, will be produced at a manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas, according to CBS News.
Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside formally announced the Moto X and its Fort Worth assembly this week at AllThingsD's D11 Conference. The Moto X will be the first smartphone ever assembled in the United States, Mark Randall, Motorola's senior vice president of supply chain and operations, noted in a statement. This despite the fact that the United States was until recently the largest market for smartphones.
"Fact remains that more than 130 million people in the U.S. are using smartphones," Randall said, "but until Moto X, none of those smartphones have been built in the USA."
The Moto X — scheduled to debut this summer — will be assembled at a Fort Worth factory owned by Flextronics International, a Singapore-based contract electronics manufacturer. The 500,000 square-foot facility will employ 2,000 people by August. Locating the assembly operations in Fort Worth will increase efficiencies in production, as Motorola's engineering teams are based in Chicago and Silicon Valley, while its service and repair operations are based in Mexico.
In moving its assembly operations into the United States, Motorola has beaten fellow U.S. phone maker Apple to a possible marketing point. With the American economy still sluggish and unemployment numbers still high, a Made in the USA tag could help to score points in the world's second-largest smartphone market.
Apple CEO Tim Cook last year said he wanted there to be American-made Apple products, despite the company's long-time reliance on Taiwan's Foxconn to assemble its bestselling iPhone. Cook noted that some of the components that go into iPhones are in fact made in the United States, even if the devices themselves are assembled overseas.
"The [ARM semiconductor] engine for the iPad and iPhone are built in the U.S., in Austin Texas," Cook said. "The [Corning] glass for your iPhone... is made in Kentucky."
Apple is already assembling some of its iMac desktop computers in the United States, and the company reportedly will soon debut another Made in America Mac. That Mac, Cook recently confirmed, will be a refreshed version of an existing product, possibly a revamped Mac Pro.
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27 Comments
For Moto's sake it would be great if it was a "game-changer" as far as features go. Perhaps instead it's only a game-changer for the build location, USA rather than China or Vietnam. The only unique feature I've seen rumored is an innovative way of managing battery life. Maybe Motorola is just really good at keeping the other features under wraps.
It doesn't matter where it is built, it is how it performs in relation to the competition. If its a good phone and marketed well it will sell. The competition is stiff though.
That may be a stock pic of the Moto x. Cause that's a rebadged Nexus 4 in that pic.
i read the Moto X still has all the crapware layered over Android and will not be upgraded directly from Google but from the carriers. Why bother? All Motorola phones should be like the "nexus" devices. no crapware, and all updates directly from Google. If the crapware is so good, put it in the Play store and people will rush to download it, but we all know that would never happen which is why they put it there and make it so you can not remove it without hacking your phone.
Do you all really think the slogan "Made in American" will matter, it did not help the auto companies. It wasn't until they fixed their quality problems and made a relevant product did people begin buying from the US auto makers again. American's have no pride, they only care about how much something costs and rather not know about where it was built or if children were used. Only when the media make an issue of and people feel guilty do that care. Do not worry the Flextronic factory will probably use illegals in it factory to cut costs. Yeah Motorola needs to do something about their power management problems, Apple has smaller battery and it phone run as long or longer than Motorola phone with bigger battery except for the RAZR max but that thing has a battery which is twice as big as Apple but not twice the life. I think this is risky move on Motorola part,