Zander: Motorola will rebound with new handsets
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(InfoWorld) - The day afterÂ 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. "We're not going to have another Razr. Every once in a while, something will pop, but there have been only three in recent years -- the Microtec, the Startec, and the Razr," Zander said Thursday in a webcast address at the Lehman Brothers Worldwide Wireless and Wireline Conference in New York. Now the company is preparing to launch products in Europe and Asia during June and July: theÂ Razr2 cell phone,Â Moto Z8 handset with a digital music player and mobile TV, Moto Q 9 mobile e-mail smartphone, and Rokr Z6, a handheld MP3 music player and cell phone. "So there are four of them, which proves we can still design some pretty wild things. But we need more of them at more price points with more geographies and more carriers," Zander said. A wider range of products will allow Motorola to focus on its twin strategies of selling low-end handsets in emerging markets such as the Middle East and southeast Asia through channel distributors and retail partners, and selling high-end handsets in Europe, China, and Japan. Zander acknowledged that competing vendors, such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson, have already gotten a start in those areas, but said Motorola will catch up fast with the widespread emergence of WiMax wireless networks in the U.S. "We're still very PC-centric with MP3 over here, we're very tethered. But in Europe and Asia and even Latin America, it's more of an over-the-air experience to download music and video. Hopefully, that will change in the U.S. as we get these networks installed in the second half of 2007 and in 2008." However, Motorola faces an uphill climb to regain its lost market share, according to a study released Thursday. Nokia surged forward on mobile phone sales in China and Japan during the first quarter of 2007, padding its dominant lead over competitors, according to Gartner. The overall industry sold 257.4 million units during the first quarter, a healthy growth rate of 14 percent over the same quarter last year, despite the annual post-holiday sales slump in Western Europe and North America, Gartner said. But Nokia outperformed its rivals, claiming 35.7 percent market share for a large lead over Motorola's 18.5 percent, Samsung's 12.5 percent, Sony Ericsson's 8.4 percent, and LG Electronics' 6.2 percent. Motorola suffered from stocking its channel resellers with excess products in the first quarter, forcing them to drop prices to push the phones into end-users' hands, Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said in the report. That problem will persist through the second quarter, but the company could rebound if there is strong demand for the Razr2, she said. Zander admitted the company had been tripped up when those slowing sales threatened to overwhelm corporate overhead costs. "The last few months have been very unsettling," he said. "January and February caught us by surprise, quite frankly. We did have to pull the trigger quickly with some headcount expenses, we had to get that done quickly." The latest layoffs came just four months afterÂ Zander announced a round of 3,500 job cuts in January. Together, the layoffs will allow Motorola to save nearly $1 billion every year, giving it the flexibility to increase funding for new areas of research in the fast-changing mobile handset segment, he said. But first, Zander faces the task of reassuring workers who were shaken by the downsizing. "I'm spending the better part of this week traveling around the country talking to employees because they get nervous. We have to get back on track," he said.
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Today Motorola debuted what some believe could be its last new phones before cutting its handset division free, including a Linux-based slider.
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Motorola needs a successor to its  successful RAZR phone to hold on to market share, and BenQ  Mobile is set to make gains when new products kick in, market  research group Gartner said in a survey on Wednesday.
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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.
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Motorola (MOT) said Tuesday that its quarterly profit rose on improving sales of a host of new handset models. The world&#39;s No.
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Motorola will test handsets that include wireless payment functions.
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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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(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.
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Motorola Inc. MOT.N, 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's  second-largest mobile phone maker, said on Tuesday it expects  to sustain strong sales growth in the second half of 2004  thanks to new handsets with innovative designs and features.
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U.S.-based Motorola unveiled a range of new handsets on Monday that will be built around its popular RAZR model, and showed a long-awaited music phone with Apple's iTunes music player software.
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Motorola Inc. MOT.N 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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Motorola Inc. on  Monday unveiled several new handsets, including the Krzr and  the Rizr, which are narrower than its flagship Razr.
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Motorola Inc.'s surprise recovery in 2004 has the company hungry for bigger sales and higher profits as it expands its range of icon products, its chief executive told Reuters on Wednesday.
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Motorola Inc. executives pledged Friday to break the company out of its deep slump by rolling out a series of innovative new cell phones rather than a "one-hit wonder" like the Razr.
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&quot;Razr&quot;-sharp marketing: Motorola (nyse: MOT - news - people ) on Tuesday announced the US launch of the wafer-thin cell phone that it hopes will be the core of a suite of 20 new handsets.
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New Motorola Inc. CEO Greg Brown doesn't have the secret weapon his predecessor Ed Zander possessed when he arrived at the cell phone maker four years ago Â the Razr. But that could be a good thing Â if Brown, who took over Tuesday as chief executive, applies lessons learned from Motorola's nasty fall last year.