Motorola Weighs a Shift in Cellphones
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Motorola said Thursday that it was exploring the possibility of selling or spinning off its cellular phone business as a way to make the company more profitable.
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Sprint's negotiations to buy Nextel have ignited fears that Motorola will lose its exclusive deal to supply phones and equipment to Nextel.
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CHICAGO - Shoppers craving the latest Motorola Inc. cell phones and accessories will be able to buy them at automated sales machines being installed in nearly two dozen malls and airports nationwide.
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Motorola may spin off its handset business, the weakest part of a wireless giant that has seen hard times and a management shakeup in recent months.The company is &quot;exploring the structural and strategic realignment of its businesses to better equip its Mobile Devices Business to recapture global market leadership and to enhance shareholder value,&quot; Motorola said in a statement Thursday. &quot;The company&#39;s alternatives may include the separation of Mobile Devices from its other businesses.&quot;The handset unit has had trouble coming up with a successor to the popular Razr phone, and in last year&#39;s third quarter it fell to third place in worldwide sales behind Samsung. But spinning off the division, which forms the largest part of Motorola&#39;s business, would be a drastic move.Motorola had 13 percent of the worldwide handset market in last year&#39;s third quarter, down from a 21 percent share a year earlier, according to Gartner. Samsung had 15 percent and Nokia 38 percent.Thursday&#39;s announcement doesn&#39;t guarantee the handset business will be spun off. CEO Greg Brown said in the statement that Motorola was exploring ways in which the unit can recover faster and retain and attract talent, plus help shareholders &quot;realize the value of this great franchise.&quot;In its fourth-quarter results announced last week, Motorola said the Mobile Devices Business lost $388 million on revenue of $4.8 billion, down from a profit of $341 million on revenue of $7.8 billion a year earlier. 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&#160;Motorola&#39;s acquisition of Symbol Technologies&#160;early last year.Motorola as a whole lost $49 million for the year.&#160;CEO Ed Zander stepped down in late November, replaced by Brown.
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A troubled Motorola Inc. has realigned itself as its critical cell-phone business slows down.
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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.
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Motorola Inc.  plans to trim an additional 4,000 jobs this year, bringing the total cuts for 2007 to more than 11 percent of its work force, as the world's No. 2 mobile phone maker reduces costs to return to profitability.
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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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CHICAGO, Jan. 31 -- Struggling cellphone maker Motorola said Thursday that it was considering separating the handset unit from its other businesses in an effort to snap a deep slump since its meteoric success with the Razr.
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Woes continue Despite a new CEO, there are no signs yet of a turnaround for Motorola. The company's mobile phone division recorded a shocking quarter, with the unit's revenues down 38 per cent year-on-year, losing $388m along the way. Motorola's mobile division recorded a $1.2bn loss in 2007.â¦
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Motorola, the world&#39;s second largest mobile phone maker, is cutting 1,000 jobs although its core cellphone business will be unaffected.
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(InfoWorld) - Two days after it restructured operations, MotorolaÂ on Thursday reported that flagging sales of mobile devices were a factor in its second-quarter loss of $28 million, or $0.01 per share. The telecommunications device maker posted income of $1.38 million, or $0.55 cents a share, one year earlier. Revenue declined by 19 percent to $8.73 billion from $10.82 billion one year earlier. The drop was expected: Motorola issuedÂ preliminary financialsÂ last week, warning that its results would be lower than had been forecast. The company said Thursday that excluding one-time costs, it would have earned $0.02 per share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, who revised estimates lower after last week's warning, were forecasting break-even results on sales of $8.64 billion. Layoffs and other one-time charges were responsible for losses amounting to $0.04 per share. But the loss for the quarter underscores the company's beleaguered mobile device business, which has been outflanked by rivals including Apple. The pressure will continue. Motorola announced that it expects earnings in the third quarter to be equal to or slightly higher than the second quarter, and that its mobile devices unit will probably not be profitable this year. The company saw a drop in mobile device sales in Asia, a hot market where vendors are trying to get a big share of the market in fast growing economies, as North American and European markets become saturated with mobile phones. Motorola has taken steps to address its problems. The vendor announced Tuesday that it's restructuring into three business divisions: Mobile Devices, Home and Networks Mobility, and Enterprise Mobility Solutions. It also has a new chief of its mobile unit, Stu Reed. Motorola CEO Ed Zander has beenÂ under pressureÂ to resign. He attracted criticism from big-name investor Carl Icahn earlier this year, and recently has been attacked by activist shareholder Eric Jackson for the way he's running the company. Although Motorola has taken steps to cut costs, a core challenge for the company is product design in the competitive handset arena. ItsÂ Razr deviceÂ was praised for its design, but in a fast-paced market quickly became an also-ran, under a barrage of products from rivals that in addition to Apple include Nokia, Samsung Electronics, and LG Electronics. Despite expecting mobile phone sales to be under increasing pressure, Motorola did say that it expected its overall financial results to improve during the second half of the year. Thursday morning, Motorola shares were trading at $18.18, up $0.18 from its opening. Â
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Motorola Inc.  warned investors of a second-quarter loss on Wednesday and said it no longer expected its mobile phone business to be profitable this year, blaming weak sales in Asia and Europe.
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Motorola Inc. may have gotten a  Christmas present from rival cell phone maker Samsung -- the  Asian company was slow to beef up its product portfolio in time  for the holiday season, giving Motorola's newest feature-rich  phones an edge, analysts said.
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Analysts predict that Nokia will gain much of the market share that Motorola is losing and that Samsung could soon become the world's second-largest handset vendor.
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By Keiko Morris, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.  Sep. 20--Motorola Inc.
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Motorola Inc., the No. 2 mobile phone  maker, said on Wednesday it expects sales of phones based on  the WCDMA third-generation technology to more than quadruple  next year, helping it claw back market share.