Motorola bets on premium phones as memory costs push up prices in India

Motorola says premium phones account for 50-55% of its India revenue as rising memory costs push up prices, while local manufacturing helps the company manage supply-chain pressures

Rising memory costs are pushing India's smartphone market towards higher price points, even as chipset makers work to bring advanced artificial intelligence (AI) features to more affordable devices.

 

Speaking on the sidelines of India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2026, Motorola's head of marketing for Asia-Pacific (APAC), Shivam Ranjan, said the company had expanded its smartphone portfolio across affordable, mid-range and premium segments.

 

"Right now, we are seeing a memory super cycle where demand has outstripped supply, primarily due to the demand created by the AI boom," Ranjan said.

 

Motorola's assessment comes as smartphone makers contend with higher component costs and changing consumer preferences. While Motorola expects premium devices to contribute a larger share of its business, it plans to continue serving the affordable segment.

 

Motorola's smartphone market share in India reached 8.9 per cent in the first quarter of calendar year 2026, placing it fifth in the market, according to International Data Corporation (IDC) figures cited by the company. Ranjan said the overall smartphone market was not growing in volume, although its value was expected to rise, driven by the premium segment.

 

"If you look at our business in India, almost 50-55 per cent of our revenue now comes from premium smartphones," Ranjan said.

 

The company has expanded beyond its affordable G series and mid-range Edge series to include the Signature flagship range and Razr foldables. Ranjan said Motorola would continue to serve the affordable segment through the G series, which he described as one of the company's largest smartphone franchises globally.

 

"We will continue to have devices in the affordable segment. The G series remains a focus for us," he said.

 

Ranjan attributed the shift towards higher-priced smartphones partly to changing consumer preferences. He said younger consumers were placing greater emphasis on the experience offered by a device rather than choosing a phone based only on its price. Financing options, including no-cost equated monthly instalments (EMIs), were also making higher-priced devices more accessible.

Motorola banks on India manufacturing to manage costs

Motorola said its manufacturing operations in India could help it manage supply-chain requirements and compete with other smartphone makers, although local manufacturing would not be enough to reverse the broader increase in component prices.

 

Ranjan said all Motorola smartphones were manufactured in India, including flagship devices. The company works with electronics manufacturing services providers such as Dixon and is localising components where feasible. It also exports smartphones made in India, including flagship models, to markets such as North America.

 

"We are manufacturing 100 per cent of our smartphones in India," Ranjan said, adding that the company's India operations also catered to international markets.

 

He said manufacturing for domestic and international markets, along with component localisation, could give Motorola an advantage over competitors. However, he cautioned that these measures could not fully offset the rapid rise in component prices.

"Every aspect contributes to the cost. We are working on localising components and expanding manufacturing, but bringing down the broader cost trend single-handedly is difficult," Ranjan said.

 

Motorola is also working towards increasing local manufacturing across its wider portfolio, which includes tablets, laptops, smartwatches and earbuds. Ranjan said some of these products were not yet manufactured in India because their volumes were not large enough to support immediate localisation.

 

"Since we are starting with some segments of ecosystem products, the volumes are not large enough for us to localise immediately," he said, adding that the company was working towards localising more products as the business developed.

 

The impact of memory price increases is likely to vary across electronics categories, depending on their component requirements. Ranjan said products such as earbuds and tracking tags would face a more limited impact because memory accounts for a smaller share of their costs.

 

"If you look at products such as earbuds, memory is not a major requirement. The impact will be limited. But where RAM and NAND are significant cost components, the effect will be more pronounced," he said.

 

Ranjan also said Motorola was better placed to manage component availability because of its relationship with Lenovo, its parent company and a major PC manufacturer. However, he said memory prices remained beyond the control of individual manufacturers.