Disappointment as 16 GB Moto X Style priced Rs 29,999 in India

Motorola India has priced the Moto X Style at Rs 29,999 for 16 GB in India — announcing the number just minutes after Gionee priced its competitor to the phone — the higher-speced Gionee Elife E8 at Rs just Rs 34,999.

The 32 GB version has been priced at just Rs 2,000 higher — or at Rs 31,999. Sales will start on Oct 14 on Flipkart.

The prices have disappointed most of the fans, who were expecting a price of around Rs 25,000 as the X Play was priced at just Rs 18,499.

Going by our poll, most of the fans expected the price to be around Rs 25,000 for the 32 GB version. The announced price of Rs 31,999 is 7,000 more than the average expectation.

One of the reasons why pricing is crucial is that this will be the first model being launched by the company since it announced it would start offline sales as well.

Offline channels require higher margin than online retailers and this could push up the final price slightly.

The current price of the phone is $475 on Amazon.com, translated to Rs 31,300. There is also another version with 16 GB of memory.

The Moto X Style will also take recently launched large-display quad-HD flagships such as the HTC One E9+, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and the LG G4 — all priced around the Rs 40,000 mark in India.

The Moto X Style has a Quad-HD 5.7 inch display and a Snapdragon processor, as well as 3 GB of RAM. It has a 3 Ah battery with support for fast charging. The phone charges upto 85% in 15 minutes.

One of its competitors, the Huawei Nexus 6P has been officially priced at Rs 39,999 in India and $499 (Rs 33,000) in the US. The 64 GB model will cost Rs 42,999 in India.

Motorola-made Nexus 6 2014 — with 32 GB of storage, a Snapdragon 805 32-bit processor, 3 GB of RAM and most importantly, a 6-inch, Quad-HD AMOLED display — is selling in India for Rs 29,999.

Of course, last year’s Nexus does not support Band 40 LTE — the most popular nomadic 4G system launched in India. It does, however, support Band 3 — the second most popular deployment and soon to be the most popular.

Another strong contender in this space is the LG G4, which offers the Korean company’s superior brand and reliability while offering more or less the same specs as the Moto X Style. The G4 is also built on the Snapdragon 808 6-core processor and offers 3 GB of RAM. However, the display size is 5.5 inch compared to 5.7 on the Style.

Lenovo is trying to position the Motorola brand as a premium one, while pushing Lenovo branded handsets to capture the mass market. Just last month, Lenovo said that it would merge its smartphone design team with the US-based Motorola team in an effort to drive synergies and improve the design aspects of its Lenovo-branded phones.
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