motorola's handy business sold less phones than last year and is losing money...
i doubt that being one of 15 android vendors will help them survive when their handy business is separated as a standalone entity. the windows/android model is a curse for hardware makers, allowing for only cost as a differentiator thus triggering a race to the bottom until no margin is left.
the vertical integrated model of rim, apple and soon hp on the other hand gives you plenty of margin and hence a healthy business model.
Motorola on Thursday reported a better-than-expected second quarter and said its enterprise mobility business did well. The company also said that it expects to gain smartphone market share with the Droid X launch.
The company reported second quarter earnings of $162 million, or 7 cents a share, on revenue of $5.4 billion (statement). Non-GAAP earnings were 9 cents a share. Wall Street was expecting earnings of 7 cents a share on revenue of $5.19 billion.
In addition, the company slightly raised its outlook for the third quarter. Motorola projected earnings of 10 cents a share to 12 cents a share for the three months ending Sept. 30. Wall Street was expecting earnings of 10 cents a share. Motorola’s outlook includes the results of its networks unit, which is being sold to Nokia Siemens. That sale is expected to close at the end of 2010.
Also: Motorola’s breakup in sight: Nokia Siemens buys wireless networking unit
By the numbers:
- Motorola’s enterprise mobility business delivered sales of $1.9 billion and operating earnings of $181 million.
- The company’s mobile device unit, which will be spun off as a separate business, had sales of $1.7 billion and operating earnings of $87 million. Second quarter device sales were down 6 percent from a year ago. Those earnings were bolstered by a $228 million legal settlement. Backing out the legal settlement, the mobile division lost $109 million.
- Motorola shipped 8.3 million handsets, including 2.7 million smartphones.
- Network sales were $967 million with operating earnings of $178 million.
- Motorola’s home division, which includes set-top boxes, media servers and content sharing devices, had revenue of $886 million, down 13 percent from a year ago. Operating earnings were $28 million.
