Motorola boosts venture capital
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CHICAGO -- Motorola Inc.'s venture capital arm aims to boost its investments to more than $100 million this year, betting on technologies including automotive electronics, high-speed wireless communications, and advanced optical systems.
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The day after announcing that 4,000 employees will be laid off, Motorola Inc. CEO Ed Zander told investors that he plans to boost profits with a wide range of multimedia handsets, instead of relying on a single blockbuster product like the Razr cell phone.
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(InfoWorld) - The future of the mobile communications industry lies inÂ emerging high-growth markets, like China and India, and companies ignore the opportunities in these countries at their own peril, Motorola's top executive said. "It's where the future is, not only for low-end handsets but forÂ mobile communications," said Ed Zander, Motorola's chief executive officer, during an interview at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecom World 2006 conference and exhibition in Hong Kong. "You've got to make the investments. It's painful in terms of cost. ... But three to five years from now you're going to look back and say it was the right thing to do," Zander said. In recent years, Motorola has worked hard to build its presence in high-growth emerging markets, investing heavily in its operations in China, India, and elsewhere. As part of these efforts, the company was awarded two contracts by the GSM Association, an industry group comprised of operators around the world, for a low-cost GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) handset designed for emerging markets . "The press sometimes focuses on whether we can get a $20 or $10 handset, but it's the next 4 billion people that are going to get connected and all of the communications that goes with it, the infrastructure," Zander said. The rapid pace of economic growth and the large populations in these countries means that vendors cannot afford to stay away if they want to remain competitive. "You have to be in these countries. That's the bottom line. Do you want to be in business 10 years from now? Doing business in the U.S. is great. We love it. Doing business in Europe is nice. We love it. But China and these other countries is where the growth is," Zander said. Low-end products have helped Motorola build volume in emerging markets, but these countries also have sizable populations of affluent consumers, particularly in major cities such as Beijing and Mumbai. "If you're not in the country you don't get to sell this stuff," he said. Emerging markets are also an increasingly important source of research and development (R&D) for Motorola. "We have more than half our R&D outside the U.S. In China alone, we have 18 R&D centers and 3,000 engineers," Zander said, noting that these investments are not driven by a desire to reduce R&D costs or outsource operations from the U.S. "You go to India and the PhDs coming out of there are some of the best in the world, and China every year is graduating more and more students in engineering, math, and science," Zander said. "We have to be where the smart people are."
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Motorola Inc  reported on  Thursday its first profit in 2007 and gave an outlook that beat  Wall Street expectations, in a sign the mobile phone maker has  started to turn around its business.
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Shares of Motorola (MOT:NYSE - news - research) rose Tuesday after Geoffrey Frost, senior vice president of Motorola&#39;s mobile phone division, told Reuters that the company feels &quot;very good&quot; about sales growth during the second half of the year.
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Motorola Inc , the world's  third biggest mobile phone maker, on Sunday unveiled two new  phones and a plan to buy Asian digital music service Soundbuzz  as it looks to stem recent market share losses.
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Motorola Inc  is seeing a  strong boost from sales of set-top boxes for high-definition  television services, according to Dan Maloney, head of the  company's set-top box and network equipment unit.
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Motorola Inc  reported on Thursday its first profit in 2007 and gave an outlook that beat Wall Street expectations, in a sign the mobile phone maker has started to turn around its business.
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Motorola Inc.  on Tuesday said quarterly earnings rose 34 percent, beating Wall Street expectations, as it regained global market share in wireless  handsets amid robust sales of a range of function-rich phones.
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(InfoWorld) - A troubled Motorola has realigned itself as its criticalÂ cell-phone business slows down. The company sketched out the reorganization in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday, two days before it is set to announce its second-quarter financial results. Last week, Motorola slashed its earlier revenue forecast for the quarter and predicted a larger loss, blaming lower phone sales. It also named a new chief of its mobile unit, Stu Reed. Other recent changes in the executive ranks have also rocked the company. Motorola is now split into three divisions: Mobile Devices, Home and Networks Mobility, and Enterprise Mobility Solutions. The company is moving its Good Technology mobile e-mail software business from the Mobile Devices division into Enterprise Mobility Solutions. Its carrier equipment business has been combined with home broadband products in the Home and Networks Mobility segment with the new enterprise unit focusing on private network products. The Home and Networks Mobility group is responsible for set-top boxes and digital video systems for carriers, home DSL and cable modems, and wired and wireless broadband network gear. The Enterprise group encompasses analog and digital two-way radio and other voice and data communications systems for government, businesses and Motorola's large public safety customer base. Good Technology, whichÂ Motorola acquiredÂ in a deal completed in February, is a mobile messaging platform with enterprise features like centralized lockdown of unwanted applications on the phone. It competes against Research in Motion's BlackBerry system and Nokia's Intellisync technology. After the rousing success of the slim Razr handset, which started out as a premium-priced bauble and quickly became a mass-market commodity, Motorola has had trouble coming out with an encore. A Razr 2 is expected later this year. New handsets from Nokia, Samsung, and LG Electronics had stolen the spotlight even before Apple's iPhone, which debuted June 29, became the talk of the industry. Meanwhile, sales for all makers have stagnated in higher-priced markets like North America and Europe while rising in lower-priced India and China, according to industry analysts. Last Wednesday, Motorola said it expected to report 35 million to 36 million handset sales in the second quarter, down from 45.5 million in the previous quarter. Its revenue forecast dropped from $9.4 billion to between $8.6 billion and $8.7 billion. The company now expects to lose between $0.02 and $0.04 in the quarter.
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Motorola Inc  expects revenue  and bottom-line improvements for its mobile devices business in  the fourth quarter compared with the third quarter, a top  executive for the company said on Thursday.
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OT&quot;&gt; Motorola, the world&#39;s second-largest maker of cellphones, said yesterday that its profit more than quadrupled in the third quarter and revenue jumped 26 percent compared with the quarter
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Digital music leader Soundbuzz lures Motorola, seeking to expand the selection of platforms.
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Wireless services will lead the next growth phase of the Internet as venture capitalists who helped fund the early boom open their wallets again, industry leaders said Monday.
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Motorola Inc. , the world's No. 2 maker of cell phones, on Tuesday said its quarterly profit more than tripled, as sales rose 26 percent, driven in part by a host of new handset models and cost controls.
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InfoWorld - The day after&#160;announcing that 4,000 employees will be laid off, Motorola CEO Ed Zander told investors that he plans to boost profits with a wide range of multimedia handsets instead of relying on a single blockbuster product like the Razr cell phone.
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Motorola Inc. said on Friday it plans to invest &#36;90 million in a new research facility in Beijing as the U.S. mobile phone maker fights to wrest back top position in the domestic handset market.