Update: Motorola sees slowdown in mobile sales
626130
(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
337808
Motorola Inc , the world's No.  3 mobile phone maker, said on Thursday it is exploring  strategic alternatives including a possible separation of its  mobile devices business from other units.
108798
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.
470627
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.
576995
Motorola Inc. , which has  warned that it will post a second quarterly loss in a row,  announced a business reorganization on Tuesday that one analyst  said could help the mobile phone maker cut costs.
49691
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.
704306
Hit hard by slowing cell-phone sales, Motorola names a new mobile chief, splits into three divisions.
765535
- Motorola Inc.  said it expects to cut an additional 4,000 jobs as it continues to lower costs.
262593
(InfoWorld) - As IT investors brace for a wave of financial reports next week, mobile device makers are attracting attention as Asia becomes an increasingly important battleground for handset sales. For example, Motorola preannounced part of its quarterly report, due July 19, on Wednesday, saying thatÂ second quarter sales would be $8.6 billion to $8.7 billion, instead of $9.4 billion as previously forecast. The company expects a drop in handset sales in Asia, where vendors are vying to get the lion's share of the market in growing national economies, as North American and Europe become saturated with mobile phones. Despite the revised forecast, Motorola enjoyed a spike in the price of its shares caused by rumors that CEO Ed Zander might resign. Motorola shares jumped Wednesday by $0.33 Wednesday to close at $17.95, and rose again Thursday to close at $18.08. Zander attracted criticism from heavyweight investor Carl Icahn earlier this year and now has come under attack from well-known activist shareholder Eric Jackson. Zander's departure would indicate that a serious restructuring was under way at the company, which has been outflanked on several fronts in the handsets wars by rivals like Apple. Meanwhile, investors saw Motorola's quarterly weakness as Nokia's gain. Brokerage Oppenheimer & Co. reiterated a "buy" rating on Nokia after Motorola's announcement. Nokia shares rose $1.08 Thursday to close at $29.95. The mobile phone market has come under increasing scrutiny lately in the wake of the June 29 launch of Apple's iPhone in the U.S. Apple is now reported to be in talks with carriers to launch the device in Europe, Finland-based Nokia's home market. A report from a JP Morgan Chase analyst Tuesday thatÂ Apple will also launch a cheaper version of the iPhoneÂ in the fourth quarter drove up Apple shares. JP Morgan analyst Kevin Chang said the new model could sell for less than $300, basing his report on Apple patent filings and component supplier sources. A cheaper iPhone would put it within reach of younger customers. Apple shares rose by $1.68 Thursday to close at $134.07. Technology companies for the most part are riding high on general confidence in corporate earnings. The technology-heavy Nasdaq has hit several six-and-a-half year highs over the last 10 days. General economic conditions have helped. For example, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached a record Thursday on positive news from retail sales data and continued mergers and acquisitions announcements. But IT vendors themselves are coming off a string of quarters that have generally been good for earnings overall. The torrid pace of M&A in IT also continues unabated: Just this week, for example, Google beefed up security offerings with itsÂ planned $625 million buy of Postini. Next week will provide key information for forecasts for the rest of the year as a string of IT bellwether reports quarterly sales and guidance for the rest of the year. Among those due to report: IBM, Google, Yahoo, Motorola, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, and SAP.
616731
Motorola Inc. said Thursday its profit plunged 94 percent in the third quarter on sharply lower sales, but the ailing cell-phone maker showed signs of improvement in its cell-phone business and painted a more upbeat outlook for its future.
378787
Market researcher IDC expects growth  in the global market for mobile phones to slow to single digits  from this year onwards after unit sales rose 11.6 percent last  quarter, it said in a statement on Friday.
492095
After two years of success due to the RAZR phone, sales are now slumping, but Motorola hopes that new models will fuel a recovery next year.
469764
(InfoWorld) - Worldwide mobile phone sales grew 21.5 percent year on year to 251 million units in the third quarter, with India and China driving growth, according to research from Gartner Inc. Gartner predicts that sales for the year will fall just shy of one billion phones. Sales should reach 986 million units by the end of the year, the research group said. Europe, one of the most mature mobile phone markets in the world, showed just 1.9 percent growth over the same quarter last year. Asia Pacific experienced the most dramatic gains, with sales of 80.8 million units during the third quarter, an increase of 54.7 percent over the same period last year. That significant growth happened despite a decline in sales of 4.7 percent in Japan compared to the third quarter in 2005. An increase in retail outlets and better distribution channels in emerging markets such as Indonesia, Philippines, and India significantly offset that loss though, driving growth in the region. Other regions of the world also reported solid growth. In Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, sales grew 19 percent compared to last year, to 48 million phones. North American sales reached 40.8 million units, up 12 percent. Sales in Latin America grew 13.7 percent over the same time last year, to 29.8 million phones. Gartner reported that the smaller phone makers will increasingly struggle to compete against the giants. In the third quarter, Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung Electronics together accounted for 68 percent of phone sales. Among those three, competition is fierce. While Motorola increased its market share during the quarter, it lost its number one position in Latin America, to Nokia, and also lost its number two spot in Western Europe, to Samsung. Nokia has the largest market share worldwide, but failed to grow its market share in North America during the quarter. Nokia's worldwide market share was 35.1 percent, up from 32.5 percent in the same quarter last year. Motorola had 20.6 percent, compared to 18.7 percent during the third quarter in 2005. No. 3 vendor Samsung had 12.2 percent market share, just slightly down from 12.5 percent last year.
284905
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.
631206
Motorola Inc.  on Thursday posted a quarterly loss as revenue fell amid weak phone sales, as it loses market share.
179211
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.
402992
(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.