Online retail major Flipkart has announced its plan to stop selling Moto G smartphone in the country.At present only the 16GB version of MotoG is available in India, and Motorola and Flipkart will not replenish the inventory once the smartphone’s stock runs out, according to a statement posted by the online company on its website. The 8GB model went out of stock soon after Motorola cut the prices of both variants of Moto G by Rs 2,000 in July, and it now appears that more units may not be on their way.
With 16GB variant of Moto G permanently going out of stock, it virtually means the end of Moto G’s run in India. As, Flipkart is the exclusive seller for the smartphone range in the country. On its website, Flipkart has posted the image below:
Launched in India in early March this year, Moto G is credited of bringing a major change in the country’s smartphone market. The smartphone offered a quality display, snappy performance, day-long battery life and the latest version of Android at a starting price of Rs 12,499. However, it was criticized for its low-resolution camera and no storage expansion.
Moto G’s attractive pricing helped it crack the sub-Rs 15,000 market, which was dominated by indigenous brands like Micromax, Karbonn and Lava. This dip in the low-end segment of the market proved fruitful for Motorola, with buyers’ rush to purchase Moto G crashing Flipkart website. In fact, for nearly a month, Motorola struggled to meet the demand for Moto G in India.
Both Moto G and Moto E helped Motorola score sales of one million units within five months of its re-entry. However, lately Moto G has been facing tough competition from two new entrants in the Indian smartphone market: Xiaomi Mi 3 and Asus Zenfone 5. The Xiaomi phone offers much better hardware than Moto G at the same price as its 16GB unit. ZenFone 5 offers similar hardware, but has a higher resolution camera, sports a bigger screen and allows storage expansion via microSD cards.
On its part, Motorola is said to be already working on a Moto G successor. The company is hosting an event in New Delhi on September 5, where it is expected to showcase Moto G2, which is said to have upgrades like 5-inch screen and 8MP camera, while the remaining features are reported to be same as that of Moto G.
Motorola is also expected to launch Moto 360 smartwatch and Moto X smartphone’s successor at the event.
