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Area Development - Site Selection, Facility Planning and Workforce Development

Motorola Mobility To Open Fort Worth, Texas, Manufacturing Facility To Create The First Domestically Produced Smartphone

05/31/2013
Motorola Mobility plans to design, engineer and assemble the first domestically produced Smartphone, its MotoX, at a 500,000 square foot facility in Fort Worth Texas. The company’s manufacturing partner, Flextronics, plans to hire approximately 2,000 employees to staff the production facility.

Company officials said they choose the site because of its close accessibility to design engineers and other professionals, along with the economic efficiencies of building the Smartphones closer to potential customers on the supply chain.

Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside said “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.”

“There were a few reasons why we decided to do this,” he explained “There are several 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.”

“We still have a network of global operations, and that won’t change,” Woodside said. “Our global manufacturing partner remains Flextronics and we’ll continue to assemble devices locally in China and Brazil. But Flextronics is busy looking for people for the new Fort Worth facility now,” he added. “This is an incredibly exciting time to be in the mobile device industry. Our role in inventing the mobile phone is well known. We’re happy to be shaping its future as well.”

Gov. Rick Perry said "Motorola Mobility's decision to manufacture its new smartphone and create thousands of new jobs in Texas is great news for our growing state. Our strong, healthy economy, built on a foundation of low taxes, smart regulation, fair legal system and a skilled workforce is attracting companies from across the country and around the world that want to be a part of the rising Texas success story.”

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