Motorola sees loss on struggling mobile unit
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Motorola Inc said on Wednesday it will  post an operating loss in the current quarter as its cell phone  business is taking longer than expected to turn around, dashing  Wall Street hopes for a profit and sending its shares down as  much as 23 percent.
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CHICAGO -- Cell-phone maker Motorola Inc. posted a $28 million second-quarter loss Thursday as continuing weak sales resulted in its first back-to-back losses in five years.
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The smart phone maker reported a loss in its fiscal second quarter as revenue declined and expenses rose.
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(InfoWorld) - Amid increasing competition in a fickle cell phone market, Motorola expects to report a loss for its mobile devices business in 2007 and now estimates that second quarter sales will be lower than expected. The number two handset maker said on Wednesday that second quarter sales for the company would be $8.6 billion to $8.7 billion, instead of $9.4 billion as previously expected. That drop in expected sales is the result of lower handset sales, particularly in Asia and Europe, Motorola said. In the second quarter, Motorola expects to report sales of 35 million to 36 million handsets. That will lead to a larger operating loss for the mobile device business in the second quarter compared to the first quarter, it said. During the first quarter, Motorola sold 45.5 million phones. At the time, the company said it foresaw a gradual recovery of its mobile phone business throughout the rest of the year with expectations of a profitable year. Motorola now expects a second quarter generally accepted accounting principles loss per share in the range of $0.02 to $0.04. The company will announce its earnings for the second quarter 2007 on July 19 and will offer further details then, it said. Motorola also announced that it named a new president for the mobile division: Stu Reed, formerly executive vice president of integrated supply chain for Motorola. Reed's predecessor, Ron Garriques, left the company in February to head up Dell's global consumer division. Prior to its first quarter earnings report, Motorola also had to warn that sales would be lower than expected. It made some executive changes then, including the appointment of a new president. Earlier in the year, Motorola had implemented a new plan to help it improve profitability, but that plan wasn't working out, the company said during the first quarter earnings warning. Most of the large handset makers are struggling to keep profits up as sales in established markets like Europe stagnate as most people there already have phones. The companies are increasingly branching out into emerging markets, such as India and China, but they must sell their phones at lower prices to win customers there. That's squeezing profit margins."The only real growth is at the low end, which means there's nice unit growth, but the dollar growth is not there," said Will Strauss, an analyst with Forward Concepts. "This year is a soft year for the cell phone market, in spite of Apple," he said. Apple's hugely hyped iPhone is expected to sell around 10 million units through next year, which may sound like a lot. But this number is dwarfed by the approximately 150 million units that companies like Nokia sell in a year, Strauss said. The iPhone isn't affecting the sales of the biggest cell phone companies, but it may help companies like Motorola realize what they need to do to improve their prospects, he said. The only way that the mobile phone companies can grow profits in saturated markets is to "convince everybody that they need a new cell phone with new bells and whistles," Strauss said. "The iPhone is raising awareness of what the future cell phones are going to look like." In addition, Motorola is notorious for producing hit phones, like the Razr, that sell well but then failing to follow up with additional models that continue the momentum. "They rode too long on the Razr," Strauss said. But the handset maker could get a boost later in the year when it starts selling the Razr 2, which Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis, said is a big improvement on the first version. Motorola is likely to learn from its mistakes the first time around too. "In the past, they really let the original Razr run away with volume as opposed to maintaining it as a premium fashion phone," he said. "I think this time they're going to resist the rapid price drop." This story was updated on July 11, 2007. Â
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Motorola&#39;s mobile-phone business continued to lose its signal in the fourth quarter, dragging the company&#39;s revenue and profit down.The Schaumburg, Illinois, company has had trouble coming up with a phone to match the success of its original Razr, which is now several years old and does little for the company&#39;s bottom line. Motorola&#39;s Mobile Devices unit had sales of $4.8 billion in the fourth quarter, down from $7.8 billion a year earlier, and the division lost $388 million compared with profit of $341 million in last year&#39;s fourth quarter.Stronger results with enterprise and home-network products eased Motorola&#39;s pain, but the company still reported a steep fall in profit for the quarter and a loss for the full year 2007. In the fourth quarter, Motorola had net income of $100 million and earnings per share of $0.04, down from $529 million or $0.25 a year earlier. The company lost $49 million or $0.02 per share for the year. Companywide, revenue in the quarter fell to $9.6 billion from $11.8 billion a year earlier.The outlook for the current quarter is no better. Along with Wednesday&#39;s earnings report, Motorola forecast a loss of between $0.05 per share and $0.07 per share, excluding charges associated with its cost-reduction initiatives and other items.&quot;The recovery in Mobile Devices will take longer than expected and there is a lot more work to be done,&quot; CEO Greg Brown said in a prepared statement. The company&#39;s &quot;primary focus&quot; is to improve profits and enhance its mobile products, he added. Motorola is also focused on reducing costs and took several steps to make the Mobile Devices business more efficient, he said.Once locked in a struggle with Nokia for cell-phone sales leadership,&#160;Motorola had fallen to third place&#160;behind Samsung by last year&#39;s third quarter. Last May, when it introduced the Razr&#39;s successor, called the Razr2, the company said it hoped the new device would cut losses. But tough times have continued in the face of Apple&#39;s iPhone and other high-profile competitors, and in late November,&#160;CEO Ed Zander was replaced by Brown.Fourth-quarter sales were up in both the Home and Networks Mobility group, which makes set-top boxes and wireless infrastructure, and in Enterprise Mobility, which benefitted from Motorola&#39;s acquisition of Symbol Technologies early last year. The home business saw sales rise 11 percent to $2.7 billion, though its profit fell to $192 million. Profit in the home business soared to $451 million from $323 million in the fourth quarter of 2006, while sales were up 35 percent to $2.1 billion.In midday trading Wednesday, Motorola&#39;s shares on the New York Stock Exchange were down $2.32 to $10.00 amid a generally weak day on Wall Street.
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The prospect of a deal between Sprint and Nextel Communications sparked concerns on Friday about a shrinking U.S. market for mobile network equipment, sending shares of Nextel's key supplier Motorola Inc.  down almost 8 percent.
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Motorola Inc.  posted its second straight quarterly loss on Thursday as a lack of advanced mobile phones cost the company market share and dropped it into third place in the industry behind Nokia  and Samsung Electronics .
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Motorola Inc  has essentially put its mobile phone unit up for sale, but the company is unlikely to be able to seal a deal any time soon despite a plethora of possible buyers.
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Motorola Inc.  on Thursday posted a quarterly loss as revenue fell amid weak phone sales, as it loses market share.
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Motorola posted a loss from continuing operations of $38 million, or 2 cents a share, compared with a profit of $1.35 billion, or 54 cents per share, a year earlier.
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Motorola Inc  on Thursday posted a quarterly profit from continuing operations in the third quarter but revenue fell.
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Motorola Inc  said on Wednesday it will post an operating loss in the current quarter as recovery in its cell phone business is taking longer than expected, dashing Wall Street expectations for a profit and sending its shares down as much as 14 percent.
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Motorola's mobile-phone business recorded a $138 million loss in the third quarter, with handset revenues declining by 36 percent to $4.5 billion in comparison with the year-earlier period. Nevertheless, Motorola executives remain upbeat about the ailing unit's prospects for returning to profitability, noting that substantial progress has been made during the quarter.
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Motorola Inc  said on Wednesday  it will post an operating loss in the current quarter as  recovery in its cell phone business is taking longer than  expected, dashing Wall Street expectations for a profit and  sending its shares down as much as 14 percent.
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CHICAGO -- Wireless technology company Motorola Inc. said Thursday its profit plunged 94 percent in the third quarter, as sales fell substantially in its cell phone business and it narrowly averted a third straight quarterly loss.
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Motorola Inc. , which has been losing market share amid criticism of its mobile phone line-up, on Thursday posted a quarterly loss as revenue fell amid weak phone sales.
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Motorola, the world's second largest mobile phone maker, is cutting 1% of its workforce but its core mobile phone operations will be unaffected.