A major carrier is set to range the new Motorola Moto Mods and the new Moto Z and Moto Z Play smartphones, ChannelNews can confirm.
A key sticking point that has seen none of the key carriers, Vodafone, Optus or Telstra pick up the new phones from day one, has been the difficulty of ranging both Moto Mod accessories which includes a super zoom camera incorporating Hasselblad technology, a battery that delivers a weekend of power, a big screen projector that delivers a 70” display and a JBL developed sound system that clicks onto the back of the new Moto Z together in retail stores.
According to Danny Adamopoulos Senior Director of Product Operations APAC for Motorola, a “major” carrier will range both the Mot Mod accessories and the Moto Z and Moto Z Play smartphones in the new year.
With one carrier Motorola had to negotiate with the smartphone buying team then a separate team for the accessories.
A Telstra source that ChannelNews has spoken to said that the merchandising of both the Moto Z and Moto Z Play along with the Moto Mods “Is too difficult” based on the current Telstra store layouts.
“This has been a problem with other brands who are now rolling out VR headsets, watches and 360 degree cameras” they added.
According to Adamopoulos the two most popular accessories in the Moto Mod range are the additional battery pack and JBL speakers. He said the additional battery represented 80% of purchases while the speaker made up 5O%. 25% of purchases were a speaker and battery pack combination.
Currently Officeworks and The Good Guys are planning extensive online marketing for the new devices.
The Moto Z which is the thinnest smartphone in the world today, is just 5.2mm thin, it has a 5.5″ display, a Snapdragon 820 chipset, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage as standard. If that’s not enough, a MicroSD slot is included that will take a 2TB card.
It also has a 13MP camera with a fast f/1.8 aperture lens, complete with OIS.
The device runs on Android Marshmallow 6.0.1 with Android 7.0 set to be available shortly.
The Moto Z goes on sale today for an RRP of $999.
The Moto Z Play has the same 5.5″ display (though with a lesser 1080p resolution) it also has a slightly less powerful Snapdragon 625 processor with 3GB of RAM and 32GB on board storage.
There is a whopping 3,510 mAh battery in this device.
Moto Z Play is available today for a RRP of $699.
