Google is set to spend $500 million or more to market their Moto X smartphone which is due out later this year. That would be a major push for the search giant’s Motorola brand, which Google, of course currently owns. As reported by mashable.com:
“Google is planning to pump a lot of money into marketing Motorola’s new flagship phone to ensure its success.
“According to sources cited by The Wall Street Journal, Google may let Motorola spend as much as $500 million to market the Moto X smartphone in the United States and abroad to compete with other smartphones on the market. The smartphone is expected to debut on the four major carriers this fall, according to the report.”
Now, while that will be a major allocation of dollars to push the Moto X, it would definitely make it competitive with Apple and Samsung, in marketing power if nothing else. And we all know Google can more than make up that cost with ad dollars. After all, they’re really just a large advertising company that uses ad revenue to subsidize cool technology. According to Forbes.com:
“That’s one big nudge. I’ve always thought that Google’s main interest in hardware of any kind was less to make a lot of money on devices but instead to push others in the industry to up their game. The better, faster, and cheaper phones, tablets, and computers out there, the more money Google makes from placing ads (ahem, useful content) in front of the people using them.”
Even though Google is the behemoth that it is, half a billion dollars is still nothing to sneeze at. The question of course is: will such a marketing blitz give them a chance to at least be in the conversation with Apple and Samsung? And of course the carriers are hungry for someone to be a viable third option, as competition is always good for the consumer. But Google will still have to navigate this situation carefully so as not to upset Samsung, who’s currently the flagship devices for Android. As stated by the same forbes.com article though: ” it could easily be a message to Samsung and HTC: We’re serious about Motorola, so you better get serious about Android phones without crapware.”
We will continue to follow this situation closely to see how it plays out. In the meantime tell us what you think.
Also check another viable third option to Apple and Samsung here.
