Here's to 50 million more

After shipping their 50 millionth Razr, Motorola is hopeful that the future will be just as lucrative as their present success, thanks to one slim phone that upped the ante.

Super-chic, wickedly cool, sexy. These words aren't typically associated with technology. But when you create the most popular phone of all time, you are bound to cross some lines. In 2004 when Motorola came out with the Razr V3, they knew they had created a high-end, innovative jewel. They did not know, however, that their illustrious Razr would be a blockbuster success, raising expectations and changing the rules of the market for all competitors.

Now, basking in the glory of their recent shipment of the 50 millionth Razr V3 handset, Motorola plans to use the same design philosophy and elements that made the Razr an unprecedented success to create a new line of phones. It won't take a complete redesign, said Motorola reps and industry analysts alike. Rather, Motorola plans to continue to thrive by simply tweaking the basic elements of the Razr and using them in new ways.

“We expect the Razr to still live on for many years,” said Tracy Toziol, corporate vice president of product management for Motorola. “As we perfect manufacturing and the volume increases, we have been able to move the product down in price. When you do that, you do open up a new available market from different consumers. We do have plans for different colors and adding new features.”

In addition to adding new features and finishes, Toziol says the Razr is serving as an anchor product from which they have proliferated a whole portfolio of new phones that she believes will carry Motorola through in popularity for years to come. Most recently, the Motofone, a budgeted version of the Razr meant to reach the developing world, came to market. It borrows design and performance elements from the Razr and had already secured 500,000 orders in its first week.

“Motofone is an incredible package — that clean, minimal design but with features that are really going to connect the unconnected,” Toziol said.

Motorola is also basing the Slvr and Q, which is it says is the lightest and thinnest phone with a QWERTY keyboard, on the Razr platform. The Slvr has become the second-best seller behind the RAZR, and Motorola expects the Q to do just as well.

“What Q gives that some of the competition doesn't is we have excellent connectivity in terms of accessing the Web,” Toziol said. “You can have remote TV play on it. It has a fabulous camera and a great display.”

Motorola also employs their design philosophy in the new Motokrzr and Motorizr handset. John Jackson, senior analyst with the Yankee Group, said that Motorola will not need anything revolutionary to maintain its success in the market. He still sees a lot of life left for Motorola if it sticks to what works.

“I think it is likely to outlast people's expectations of what a product lifecycle should be,” Jackson said. “The Razr itself may start to fade over the next year or so; however, you are going to see that design language carried up and down the portfolio, whether up into the Q or down to the lower-end variants, like the Slvr.”

Motorola currently occupies the second-largest market share for service providers, trailing behind Nokia.