[Wayde]

A hang-up glitch caused North American retailers to pull the Motorola Razr cell phone from store shelves. Early last week T-Mobile stopped selling the popular handset then Cingular quickly followed suit.

Motorola’s best selling cell phone has enjoyed an astronomical climb, selling over 14 million units in less than two years. Its stylish, slim design, crisp LCD display and signature brush metal keys turned the phone into an iconic handset and smash success for Motorola. The Razr has been moving from stores so quickly that the company has admitted to experiencing some difficulty meeting demand.

Moto's Razr shipped to retailers between January 16th and February 28th have experienced some problems with a faulty component. Units affected by the bad component will hang up unexpected while in the middle of a call. This might not seem abnormal for any handset as we’ve all experienced this problem from time to time. But for a limited number of Razr’s the problem has been serious enough for North American retailers to pull the model from store shelves. Last week T-Mobile and then Cingular both stopped selling the handset.

Spokesman for T-Mobile, Peter Dobrow said that at retail it’s nearly impossible to tell which Razrs have the defective parts. But he assures customers that they’re targeting early next week to resume retail sales. With new units already shipping that are free of the defect it shouldn’t be a problem for Motorola to make up lost ground in retail.

Last Friday Motorola produced an email statement saying this was not an inherent design flaw but a quality control issue and it will be able to easily detect and fix the problem. However some industry analysts believe this could represent a greater supply management problem that has to be addressed quickly. Brad Akyuz from Current Analyst says: “If the situation is not resolved within a reasonable amount of time – say a week to ten days – that might hurt Motorola.”

Since news of Razr’s hang up problems Motorola’s stock has dipped .46 cents in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange, that’s 2 percent of its total value.

Wayde
www.gizmocafe.com