Moto X’s sales disappoint: 500,000 devices sold so far

The Wall Street Journal reports on the disappointing sales of Moto X.

According to research firm Strategy Analytics, roughly 500,000 Moto X phones were sold in the third quarter, after the phone was released in August. By comparison, Samsung said it sold more than 10 million Galaxy S4 phones within a month of its April release.

This is bad news for Motorola. Is Google ready to roll out a Motorola phone that is capable of challenging other Android phones? At the risk of cannibalising its Nexus line?

The following makes me wonder if Google still sees a future for Motorola as a phone maker?

Motorola shipped fewer than 2% of smartphones world-wide in the third quarter, says Strategy Analytics, down from 4% two years ago. One reason is that Google pared Motorola’s product offerings from more than three dozen to just a handful.