Motorola is closing its 1 year-old Moto X assembly plant in Texas
The experience of the production of Moto X by Google and Motorola Mobility in a plant on U.S. soil, Texas, will be stopped by the end of the year.
To provide opportunities for fine customization of Moto X smartphone, Google and Motorola Mobility have opened a production plant in Fort Worth, Texas, in May 2013. This provision allowed both to quickly deliver the devices according to the choice of colors and options defined by the user on the website Moto Maker but also to try to demonstrate the production of high-end devices in the U.S. rather than Asia which was possible, in a more general effort relocation of factories.
But between the higher manufacturing costs via the assembler Foxconn, sales of Moto X became insufficient to power the production site, Motorola Mobility, which is being bought by Lenovo, and it will close the plant by the end of year, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The latter, which to nearly 4,000 employees at the height of its activity, only draws more than about 700 currently. Analysts believe that Motorola has elapsed around 900,000 Moto X in the first quarter of 2014 in the world, away from volumes of tens of millions of units.
If the acquisition by Lenovo is probably no stranger to this decision, Mark Randall, Director of Logistics at Motorola, also pointed out that smartphone sales were too low to provide the necessary economies of scale while the cost of labor and supplies cost more than in factories outside the USA.
Moto X production will continue the production but in China and Brazil. The manufacturer also wants to continue its strategy to offer attractive smartphones at aggressive prices to take market share, but with the difficulty of making little room above.
3 million smartphones of Moto G have been sold during the first quarter of the year, confirming the success of the device positioned at less than $ 200/€ 200.
