Update: Motorola Mobility has shut down its India website in a move to shutter its phone business in India, reports BGR India. Henceforth Motorola will only provide after sales support to its existing customers in India. Motorola’s website now greets visitors with a message:
We are streamlining our business and support systems, and unfortunately, we’ll no longer have a dedicated website for India.
Your local support site will remain open well into the future, and we’ll continue to provide support for our existing products.
If you are interested in viewing our current products, you can still do so here.*
Original (August 29, 2012):
Motorola will be shutting down its operations in India as a part of its strategy to lay off 20% of its work force, and close a third of its 94 offices worldwide, according to a report by BGR India.As per the report, Motorola will continue to sell their devices in India until stocks last and their service centers will remain functional. However, Motorola Mobility’s APAC region PR and employees at Motorola Mobility India did not respond to BGR India’s calls and emails, so there’s no confirmation on the same from the company’s side. The report mentions that real estate companies have confirmed that Motorola’s Hyderabad R&D facility has been put up for sale. Employees who are working on projects related to products in the US will retain their jobs, it adds.
Earlier this month, Motorola had announced that it will reduce its workforce in India as a part of its strategy to lay off 20% of its work force and close a third of its 94 offices worldwide. Motorola’s CEO Dennis Woodside said in an interview with the New York Times that the company will shrink operations in Asia and India, and centre research and development in Chicago, Sunnyvale and Beijing. Apart from that, Motorola had also stated that it would shutter operations in unprofitable markets, discontinue low-end devices, and focus on a few cell phones instead of dozens. It looks like India comes under the unprofitable markets for Motorola. Last year, Motorola released 27 new handsets in the market with minimal market acceptance.
Where Motorola Stands
On 15th August 2011, Google agreed to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion for its 17,000 patent portfolio, with the stated intent of this helping Google in defending its mobile operating system Android. The European antitrust regulators and the the U.S. Department of Justice approved the deal in February 2012, after which Google completed the acquisition in May 2012 for $12.4 billion. Google has, since then, made use of Motorola’s patents to file a patent-infringement suit against Apple and seeks to block imports of many foreign-made products such as the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, and some Macs. However, on August 29, 2012, Motorla has agreed to license some of its standards-essential patents to Apple in Germany, as reported by Engadget.
