Motorola Mobility's US Moto X Assembly Plant To Close By End Of Year

Part of the sales pitch for Motorola Mobility's (then Google-owned) Moto X smartphone was that it was partly U.S.-made; an assembly plant to put together the Moto X opened in Fort Worth, Texas in May 2013. That plant will close by the end of this year, Motorola confirms to TechCrunch, however, as sales of the smartphone and operational costs have resulted in it being too expensive to continue to operate.

Currently, the plant employs about 700 workers who build the Moto X specfically for U.S. sales, according to a spokesman speaking to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news. Motorola was recently sold to Lenovo from Google, which is the company that spearheaded the Moto X project, but Motorola tells the WSJ that this closure isn't related to the sale and was tied only to the fact that the 'north American market was exceptionally tough' when it comes to device sales.

Moto X production won't stop entirely; devices will continue to come out of Chinese and Brazilian assembly plants, as well as other locales. Motorola also plans to continue to attack the value end of the market with devices that have thinner margins but are priced below those of its competition, the company confirms.