Motorola to shut down its US factory by the end of the year

BY Rajesh Pandey

Published 2 Jun 2014

motorola

Last year with the launch of Moto X, Motorola had opened up its own assembly plant in the United States allowing it to offer consumers a way to customize their phones via Moto Maker and then ship it to them in a few days.

Sadly, thanks to the failure of the Moto X and the increasing costs, the company has decided to shut down its Texas factory, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Currently, the factory employs nearly 700 workers, who will slowly be going out of job by the end of the year. At its peak, the factory employed a whopping 3,800 workers.

“What we found was that the North American market was exceptionally tough,” Motorola President Rick said in an interview to the WSJ.

When it had initially launched the Moto X, Motorola boasted about the handset being “Assembled in USA”, which is even engraved on it. Sadly, the company has not been able to sell the handset in the required quantities to keep its plant afloat and take advantage of the economies of scale. The increasing shipping and labour costs were also putting an additional burden on it, which finally led to the company taking this decision.

[Via WSJ]