Motorola ships 28.1m phones, holds on to share
updated 07:45 am EDT, Thu July 31, 2008
Moto Q2 2008 Results
Motorola today reported surprising results for the company's spring quarter, including stronger than expected cellphone results. The electronics firm says its net earnings were break-even but that it had positive practical cash flow of $204 million following multiple quarters of losses. The Mobile Devices group says it shipped about 28.1 million phones in the three-month span and says it successfully held on to its market share despite increasing competition.
The company continues to hold on to third place in world phone shipments and sits just above LG's 27.7 million devices but well below Samsung's 45.7 million. Much of the credit is given to shipping an increasing number of 3G-capable phones as well as unusually strong North American sales of the W755 as well as control of the Latin American market as well as touchscreen MING and A810 phones that are essential to the Chinese market, where handwriting recognition is an important feature.
Phones like the ZINE ZN5 high-end cameraphone should also help in the future, Motorola says. The American cellphone maker has often struggled to compete with premium devices and in the US has suffered from the launch of the iPhone, as more customers switched to the Apple phone from a RAZR than any other individual device.
The company's Home and Networks Mobility and Enterprise Mobility groups were nonetheless the key motivators for the quarter, according to Motorola chief Greg Brown. These groups primarily handle equippent such as cable modems, DVR boxes, and WiMAX for home users as well as professional handhelds and large-scale communications or business networks.
Although total sales were down year-over-year from over $8.7 billion to $8 billion, Motorola now has a more positive outlook for both the summer quarter and for the rest of the year. It plans to either break even or turn a slight profit for the quarter ending in September and to turn a larger profit of as much as eight cents per share for all of 2008.
