Today we will learn about the American multinational telecommunications company Motorola, which is credited with making the world’s first portable mobile phone.
Until a few years ago, this company was the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer and seller. However, this company had to be sold from 2007 to 2009 due to heavy losses. Which I will tell you in detail in this article, but before that let’s take a look at Motorola’s journey from the beginning.
So, friends, this story begins about 90 years ago, when two brothers together established a company named Galvin Manufacturing Corporation in a small rented house. And the names of those two brothers were Paul and Joseph Galvin. The company started with just 5 employees and a working capital of $565. In fact, the company was started by purchasing equipment from the “Stewart Battery Company” at auction.
After the company started, its first product was the Battery Eliminator, which enabled battery-powered radios to run on household electricity. But this product was quickly taken off the market as radio technology was advancing rapidly. And then later Paul found out that nowadays people like to have radios in their cars.
So he asked his engineer to make a cheap and good car radio. And then this radio, designed by Galvin Manufacturing Corporation, was shown at the “Radio Manufacturing Association Convention” where people really liked it. And with this, the company started getting orders. Now Paul wanted to give a different brand name to this radio made by “Galvin Manufacturing Corporation”, so he named this radio Motorola. In fact, Motorola is made up of two words, the first motor is related to a motor car and the second is made of bicola.
The company sold its first Motorola brand radio on June 27, 1930, and when the radio became very popular, the company changed its name to Motorola.
Website of Motorola https://www.motorola.com/us/
Later, Motorola created a “car radio receiver” and sold it to police departments and municipalities. And then during the Second World War, this company launched the SCR 536 model radio, which greatly helped the US military in communication. In 1947, in addition to radios, Motorola made a television model, the VT-71, and by this time Motorola’s main business was making radios and TVs.
Motorola also made much of the radio equipment for NASA when it launched America’s first satellite in 1958. And then Neil Armstrong went to the moon for the first time so that Motorola’s transceiver could transmit his voice to Earth. On 3 April 1973, Motorola made the world’s first portable mobile phone.
The model was the DynaTAC and was created by Martin Cooper, a senior engineer at Motorola. In 1974, Panasonic’s parent company, Japan, sold its television business to the Matsu-Shita Company of Japan. And then focusing on making phones, in 1984 Motorola launched the first cellular phone called the DynaTAC 8000x. And then, by 1996, Motorola introduced the Micro Tac, Ultra Classic, and Star Tac models of the phone. Till now it was the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer. But it slipped to second place in 1998 after the arrival of Nokia. And then later Motorola launched many great mobiles like Star Tac 2004, Razr Max, and XT603. But since 2007 the company continued to run in losses and then on 4 January 2011 it was split into two separate public companies.
One is Motorola Mobility and the other is Motorola Solutions. And then in 2012 Google bought Motorola Mobility, but later within two years, Google sold it to Lenovo as well. And now, under the banner of Lenovo, mobile phones from Motorola are trying to get ahead again.
Why Motorola failed
In 2011, Google announced that it would acquire Motorola for $12.5 billion. Motorola devices are popular for smooth performance and good value for money due to updates to the Android experience.
But US time Motorola was bought by Lenovo in May 2014, top management changed and there was a big impact on the business, Lenovo started manufacturing old devices and very outdated designs days, which ruined the market, Lenovo After a short period of ownership, updates became less and growth slowed down, Motorola’s demand decreased due to competition from Xiaomi, Vivo, and Realme, but Motorola did not change its portfolio, which Chinese players may offer specifications. Well, Motorola has launched its devices only 3 times in the last few years, that’s why till now only 2% share is in the high market.
So, Friends, this is the story of Motorola, I hope you find this article informative, Thanks for reading this article.