Motorola
Razr V3 (Pink)

The pink variant of Motorola’s iconic Razr V3 was first available in the UK as part of an exclusive deal with retailer Carphone Warehouse. Although the idea of a pink design is credited to Carphone Warehouse founder Charles Dunstone, he credits it to a member of his team who had observed there was a strong male bias in Razr sales data, which at the time was only offered in silver and black variants. The pink design was conceived to make the phone more attractive to the female market. Another version of the story is that Motorola was working on the pink variant internally. Initially the shade of pink was extremely polarising, but it was agreed that it was “right for the attitude of the phone”. The Pink Razr V3 was showcased at Motorola’s “Voyage of Discovery” – an annual sales event held on a luxury cruise ship. It was offered to several customers at the same time, but Carphone Warehouse was the only company that made an order commitment. The initial sales volume was agreed at a secret meeting in September 2005 held on the fringes of the launch event for the Motorola Rokr E1 (a mobile phone which supported iTunes developed by Motorola in conjunction with Apple). Carphone Warehouse placed a £40 million order for 250,000 pink Razrs. These quickly sold out and by the end of January 2006 the company was estimated to have sold 600,000 units. It is rumoured that Carphone Warehouse went on to sell approximately 3 million units of the Pink Razr V3 in total. Colour matching the pink paint used on the anodized aluminium chassis of the Razr with the plastic battery cover proved very problematic and although very similar, the colours never perfectly matched (as can be seen in the picture of the unit owned by the Mobile Phone Museum). The pink variant remained exclusive to Carphone Warehouse until Deutsche Telekom threatened to sue Motorola given the striking similarity of the pink design to the magenta colouring used in Deutsche Telekom’s branding. A limited-edition variant of the Pink Razr V3 “signed by” tennis star Maria Sharapova was also offered. If anyone has one of these versions and would like to donate it to the Mobile Phone Museum, we would love to hear from you.