Moto X: The first smartphone (mostly) assembled in the USA

Did you know that there are 130 million smartphones out there? I didn't either, but what I did know, or at least I assumed, none were built in the USA..Well that is about to change.

Dennis Woodside of Motorola, revealed at the AllThingsD conference how we are reinventing Motorola through a portfolio of products starting with Moto X, a new flagship smartphone that will be designed, engineered and assembled in the USA. We’re not talking about just a handful of units either -- available this summer, every Moto X sold in the USA will be assembled in Fort Worth, Texas, making it the first smartphone ever assembled domestically.

Motorola says that there were a few reasons why they decided to do this. The business advantages to having our Illinois and California-based designers and engineers much closer to our factory. For instance, we’ll be able to iterate on design much faster, create a leaner supply chain, respond much more quickly to purchasing trends and demands, and deliver devices to people here much more quickly. And as a part of Google we’re being encouraged to take big bets on things that make a difference.



Woodside told CNN that the Moto X would go on sale this fall and be priced below competing phones such as the IPhone 5, and teased that “It’s in my pocket, but I can’t show it to you.”

He said that 70% of the phone will be assembled at a Texas facility that once made Nokia phones, although some of its components will still be built overseas.