Flipkart eyes long-term Motorola deal after Moto G debut

Enthused by the overwhelming response from shoppers to Moto G launch, e-commerce player Flipkart is looking at a long term relationship with handset maker Motorola Mobility.

The US-based firm launched its much-awaited budget phone Moto G in India through Flipkart on February 6. There has been tremendous response from online shoppers to the launch with the 16GB version being sold out in first 15 minutes.

"It is extremely overwhelming. We were surprised. We did not expect this kind of response. It was more than the traffic on peak Diwali rush. Our site also went down for a couple of minutes on February 6th, the day of launch, due to traffic," Flipkart co-founder and CEO Sachin Bansal told PTI.

Moto G's 16GB version, priced at Rs. 13,999, was sold out in the first 15 minutes of the launch and few units of the 8GB version costing Rs. 12,499 were left, he added.

(Also see: Moto G comes to India with a starting price of Rs. 12,499)

Asked whether Flipkart will continue selling Motorola products after the big-bang debut of Moto G, he said that both the firms believe online is the way forward.

"Definitely, I think both Motorola and Flipkart are seeking a long term relationship. Sure, I think we do see and actually hope that we do get to do more such things together," Bansal said.

Like Flipkart, Motorola also believes that online is the way to go and as the world is moving to e-shopping, India will also follow, he added.

According to market experts, Moto G (Review I Pictures) is getting very good response from online shoppers with some 20,000 units being sold out on Flipkart within hours of the launch on February 6.

"The price difference between 8GB and 16GB was not much and that could have also led to people going for the 1GB one," Bansal said on shoppers preferring the 16GB version.

Besides, traffic to Flipkart was twice of what it sees on other days and 67 percent of it was driven just by Moto G.

"Our page views increased by 100 percent during the launch and Moto G page saw a million page views on February 6.

Also, inbound calls to customer support number doubled and we had close to 20,000 queries on Moto G alone during the day," Bansal said.

On launching Moto X, he said presently both the companies are watching the response to Moto G.

"Right now, we are focusing on Moto G and we want to wait and see how it is and then take a call on other opportunities.

I don't know how it will pan out, but we want to wait for a few days and then sit down to decide," Bansal added.

Last week, Motorola launched its first handset, Moto G, in India after a nearly two-year hiatus. After being acquired by Google in May 2012, Motorola did not introduce new products in India. However, the firm continued with its operation unit in India.

In the US, Moto G is priced at around USD 179 (about Rs. 11,200) with 8GB of storage and USD 199 (about Rs. 12,400) for the 16 GB version.