Analyst perspectives on key wireless industry topics including mobile devices, network infrastructure, mobile operators, mobile content, and short range wireless connectivity.

Well, you can now through Motorola’s “Instantmoto”, a vending machine stocked with mobile handsets and phone accessories and deployed at airports and malls. The Instantmoto vending machines are up and running, including one in the Macy's store in Chicago's Loop and another at San Francisco International Airport. Motorola will be deploying these vending machines initially in 20 different US locations.

In the past, mobile operators such as Vodafone in the UK have been selling handsets using vending machines but Motorola claims to be the first handset vendor that has taken this approach. Handset vendors are now facing competition not only from the emerging vendors and ODMs but also from the mobile operators who are promoting their own branded handsets. Hence handset vendors are now desperately seeking ways to align themselves more closely and directly with end-user customers. Using vending machines to sell handsets seems to be a way by which vendors can have a more direct relationship and interaction with the customers.    

It will be interesting to see how customers respond to this approach taken by Motorola. We all are used to buying chips and chocolates for a dollar or two from the vending machines, but how comfortable will we be at buying a handset for $200 from a similar vending machine at a crowded airport, with a queue of people waiting behind us. 

Will it become a common sight, in the near future, to see someone walking off a vending machine with a packet of chips in one hand and a new RAZR V3 in the other?

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Principal Analyst, Mobile Broadband
Posted: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 18:18:46 EST

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Principal Analyst, Mobile Broadband
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Author: Philip Solis
Principal Analyst, Mobile Broadband
Posted: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:22:23 EDT