Motorola Mobility CEO Says Xoom Sales Off To 'Good Start' >MMI
By Steven Russolillo . Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES .
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Sales of Motorola Mobility Inc.'s (MMI) Xoom tablet are off to a "good start" less than a week after its release, Chief Executive Sanjay Jha said Monday.
Jha, speaking at a Morgan Stanley technology conference in San Francisco, didn't provide specific sales numbers. He also said his original expectations regarding how the new Verizon Wireless-powered iPhone would impact Droid smartphone sales haven't changed.
"We were comforted by the fact that things weren't worse than we had guided," he said. The iPhone for Verizon Wireless--a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) and Vodafone Group PLC (VOD.LN)--has been on the market a little less than one month.
Motorola's Xoom, which hit shelves Thursday, is seen as one of the main competitors to Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iPad. The Xoom runs on Honeycomb, which is Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android operating system designed for tablets.
Jha said pricing the Xoom as high as $799 was part of a broader strategy that took into account a potential second-generation iPad, which Apple is expected to unveil Wednesday.
"We had to shoot a little bit in front of where iPad was, knowing that the iPad 2 is coming out," Jha said. "We felt $799 was the right price point for an unsubsidized device."
Jha said Motorola will release other tablets by the end of the year and expects tablet prices to decline in the second half of 2011 as industry component prices start dropping.
"I think we will have much more understanding and knowledge of how to optimize the pricing for the second half," he said.
Large enterprises are also showing increased interest in tablets, especially those using Android because they are more customizable than iPads, Jha said. That flexibility is more appealing to large companies that want to deploy tablets to thousands of employees, he said.
Jha said Motorola has had conversations with enterprises looking to place bulk orders of "tens of thousands" of tablets. He admitted Google was one of the interested parties.
"I think I understand why that is," he joked, as Google will likely support devices running its own operating system rather than products from rival Apple.
Regarding Nokia Corp.'s (NOK) decision to use the Windows Phone software from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Jha said Motorola has an opportunity to steal market share in the short term. Whenever companies enter a huge alliance like this, there tends to be a period of uncertainty, and Jha said he hopes to exploit that window of opportunity.
"This major change will create a market opportunity not just for ourselves but others as well," he said. "I have to work very hard in this short period of time to take advantage of it."
Specifically, Jha said Motorola is taking market share from Nokia in China and he's looking to continue expanding in Latin America and Europe.
Motorola Mobility shares recently fell 1.9% at $30.03. .
-By Steven Russolillo, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2180; steven.russolillo@dowjones.com .
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 28, 2011 15:18 ET (20:18 GMT) |
