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Motorola welcomes customs duty hike on mobiles, opens new ‘Moto Hub’ in Chennai

Motorola, a Lenovo brand, makes and assembles smartphones at its manufacturing unit in Sriperumbudur near Chennai.

Motorola welcomes customs duty hike on mobiles, opens new ‘Moto Hub’ in Chennai

Motorola Mobility India on Tuesday welcomed the government’s decision to hike customs duty from 10 per cent to 15 per cent on mobile handsets.

“We welcome the government’s decision as it will provide further impetus to the ‘Make in India’ initiative,” Sudhin Mathur, Managing Director, Motorola Mobility India, told IANS.

Motorola, a Lenovo brand, makes and assembles smartphones at its manufacturing unit in Sriperumbudur near Chennai through global contract manufacturing partner Flextronics.

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“This move [on import duty] by the government will lead to more job creation and further enhance the manufacturing sector,” Mathur told IANS.

With a combined market share at 9 percent, Lenovo-Motorola became the third top smartphone brand in India in the third quarter this year, according to IDC.

With the competition shifting to the retail market, Motorola has realigned its focus on opening “Moto Hubs” in the country. To strengthen its offline retail presence across India, Motorola India on Tuesday opened its first “Moto Hub” in Chennai in partnership with the multi-brand retail chain Poorvika Mobiles.

Motorola Mobility is planning to open “Moto Hubs” in 250 Poorvika Stores across 43 cities in Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Karnataka.

Earlier this month, Motorola announced the first-ever experiential store in south India. The company currently has six “Moto Hubs” (without the partnership) in Delhi-NCR and Mumbai and opened three such stores in Kolkata last month.

(Written with inputs from IANS)

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