For a while we’ve said that Motorola’s Moto G is one of the best smartphone bargains in the world and now it looks like consumers in several different countries agree. The latest report from Kantar Worldpanel shows that the Moto G has been a big seller in the United Kingdom, where it’s helped Motorola’s share from the market go from practically nothing to 6% this past quarter. The Moto G’s success has also helped propel Android to having a market share of roughly 69% in the five biggest European markets of the U.K., France, Germany Italy and Spain.
“Consumers are far more tech savvy than they were just a few years ago and the rising commoditisation of smartphones means we increasingly rely on online views and handset cost to drive our decision making,” explains Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. “Some 40% of British consumers are heavily influenced by internet reviews when deciding which mobile to buy and 48% of Moto G sales were made online. With virtually no existing customers to sell to in Britain, the Moto G has stolen significant numbers of low-mid end customers from Samsung and Nokia Lumia.”
The Moto G, which features a 4.5-inch display with a 720p resolution, a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, 8GB of storage and a 5-megapixel camera, has been priced very aggressively to attract budget smartphone shoppers. American carrier U.S. Cellular earlier this year started selling the device for just $80 off contract, while Best Buy has been offering it to its customers for $99 off contract.
