Google’s Moto G Smartphone Carries Radically Low Price: $179

If Motorola’s Moto X smartphone is a sales disappointment, the forthcoming Moto G may rock the house. Moto G could do to the smartphone market what Kindle Fire did to the 7-inch tablet market — put massive price pressure on competitors.

In a blog post today Google/Motorola formally introduces the phone and discusses the radical pricing of the new device. Here are the specs (in Google’s words):

• A brilliant 4.5-inch HD display
• Quad-core CPU
• “All-day battery life.”
• Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) . . . with a guaranteed upgrade to Android 4.4 KitKat at the beginning of 2014.
• Comes in 5 colors

The unlocked phone will cost a low-low $179 (8GB) or $199 (16GB). This is unheard of pricing. It will also be sold (or given away) through carriers. And without having held or used one, the phone looks very enticing.

Google is pulling an Amazon and selling the phone at or below cost. Indeed, Google may also be pre-empting Amazon here by setting the pricing bar very low, daring Bezos and company to sell an Android smartphone for less.

By comparison the Nexus 5 (from LG) starts at the relatively low $349. That handset now looks expensive by comparison.

The Moto G is essentially the phone that many financial analysts were hoping the iPhone 5c would be: a low-cost handset for developing markets and price-sensitive consumers.

Motorola has continued to lose market share to Samsung. However, this may be the phone that helps the company regain share. I guarantee that, with its super-aggressive pricing, it will be a hit.