Motorola issues profit warnings
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Motorola warns it is making a loss, blaming weak mobile phone sales in Asia and Europe.
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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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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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End of Zandr line cheers gloomy investors Motorola is forecasting another dreary quarter, citing poor sales in Asia and Europe for its lower-than-expected outlook.â¦
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Motorola Inc. , the world's No. 2 maker of cell phones, on Tuesday said its quarterly profit rose sharply, helped by improving sales of a host of new handset models.
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Motorola Inc. , the world&#39;s  second-biggest mobile phone maker, said it expects to cut an  additional 4,000 jobs, bringing the total to 7,500 this year,  as it works to reduce costs to return to profit.
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Amid increasing competition in a fickle cell phone market, Motorola Inc. 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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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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Motorola Inc. , the No. 3 worldwide maker of cell phones, on Tuesday said quarterly earnings rose, helped by robust holiday sales.
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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 20 percent.
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The electronics company warns on third-quarter earnings.
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Motorola Inc. MOT.N, 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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Motorola Inc  on Thursday posted a small third quarter profit from continuing operations and forecast another profit for the current quarter even as revenue fell from a year ago.
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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  on Thursday posted a quarterly profit from continuing operations in the third quarter but revenue fell.
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Motorola Inc.  on Wednesday warned of a second-quarter loss 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's  rapidly  declining fortunes in the past few years have sent shock waves  through the wireless industry, providing a stark reminder that  what is cool one day may be deeply out of favor the next.