The Motorola Moto X is one of the most unique devices released in 2013, as it allows users to customize their phone online and have it shipped directly to their front door. While only AT&T customers can take advantage of the deal right now, all Moto Xs are built in a massive plant in Fort Worth, Texas, which helps the company ship the device to Asia much faster. Danny Woodside, chief executive for Motorola Mobility, recently pointed out to Buffalo News that the Moto X is the first smartphone made in America, and represents a potential spark to a manufacturing boom in the U.S. "There are 150 million smartphones in the U.S. today, and not one of them is built here," said Woodside.
While the manufacturing costs for the Moto X are higher than they would be in various Asian countries, Motorola and its parent company Google cut costs by drastically reducing the shipping fees for the device from across the ocean, to just across the continental United States. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt recently led a tour of the facility with several notable people in attendance, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and he revealed Google is confident that the new plant will benefit the company and consumers tremendously:
"Google is a place where we take bets. This is a bet we're taking on America, on Texas, on this incredible work force that's assembled here. We think this is a safe bet. The reason is, the math works," said Schmidt.
The Texas Motorola plant has 2,500 employees and has been churning out over 100,000 Moto X's every week. The president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing Scott Paul revealed that while this may be a drop in the bucket for American manufacturing on a global scale, it could be the beginning of an overall shift towards more American manufacturing:
"On a macro level, the situation hasn't changed. But from a business decision level and a managerial perspective, the equation has changed a bit. We'll see more results of that in five or 10 years than we will today. There's a lot of things that could go awry ... But the arc does seem [headed] toward more production in the United States."
Only time will tell if the Moto X can begin new trends in smartphone customization and U.S. manufacturing, or if these new developments will simply fizzle out.
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