When Motorola launched the V3 in the third quarter of 2004 it was the thinnest phone in the world. Yesterday my elder son Ashwath wrote to me that V 3 is now 10 years old. Time flies and so soon we have spent 10 years from the time this wonderful device was launched. It changed several things across the globe and more importantly it changed my life.
Though I am a finance man, I moved into Dealer Sales and later into Trading in Mobile Phones because of the phenomenal success of this device V 3. I have personally sold thousands of V 3 Phones during 2006 and early 2007. The entire range of phones in the Motorola line up crashed in the second quarter of 2007 due to wrong pricing decisions. What seemed a long run of success was very short lived due to one bad decision on pricing.
I have used the V3 and V3i for a long long time and it was an amzing phone. The feel of holding the phone and the ease of using the phone made it an incredible success. V3 is the most comfortable phone that I have ever used in my life.
The colour variants in the V3 and V3i continued with black, blue, silver, pink and so on. When the pink was launched I thought it will not sell well but my gut feel was proved wrong by the market. V3 Pink used to be a most soft after model and we had to run around Motorola for the allocation of stocks in those days.
The software, language pack, charger pin, manual though were all standards features in any box containing a mobile became crucial factors. Depending the region to which the phones were shipped one had to be clear about these details and carefully conclude the deals.
I learnt a lot on trading, deal making, stock management, pricing, logistics, cash rotation, and the the list would go on. It was an amazing once-in-lifetime experience dealing with the huge success of V3 particularly during 2005 and 2006. I sincerely thank Mr.Rajkumar, Neal Barros, Bahjat Mirza for all the experiences, knowledge, challenges, learnings and the wonderful memories.
I am wonder struck at how the fortunes of the company changed dramatically due to one successful model V3. I am equally wonder struck as to how the company lost that golden opportunity and slipped from a high pedestal overnight due to one bad pricing decision. It calls for a Case Study for the Management Schools and I shall write the case study some day in the future.
V3 is not a phone it is phenomenon. Long Live V 3 and its Success Story.
T.P.Anand
Dubai, U.A.E.
7th July 2014
V3 an integrated Finance Management Marketing team would always be a success.
ReplyDeleteAnand, That's a lovely model. I always wanted to have one during its hey days but never was able to. Didn't know you were in charge of the sales! Pricing is one thing but I think not getting into Android band wagon and re-thinking on design factors led to Motorola phone division take over by google. Appleai kaappi adithaar pizhaithaar. Companies like Samsung started their android journey at the right time and replicated ios features one by one. Android itself is very buggy in my opinion - I work on it. Anyway, thanks for bringing back old memories!
ReplyDeleteadrenaline was in short supply in those days ;-)
ReplyDeleteV3 is THE most fascinating piece of technology and design I have witnessed. It was a big part of our family for many reasons and had a huge impact on me, my imagination and love for technology.
ReplyDeleteMy only regret is being too young and not having the need for a phone when it was popular (But me and my brother loved sneaking it from our parents and having fun with it.)