Motorola Mobility loss eases as phone sales rise

Motorola Mobility, which makes mobile phones and cable set-top boxes, reported a smaller loss in the latest quarter as phone shipments rose by a quarter from a year ago. Motorola Mobility Holdings said on Thursday it had a net loss of $32 million (Dh117.5 million), or 11 cents per share, in the third quarter, which ended on October 1. That compares with a loss of $34 million a year ago, when the company was still part of Motorola Inc. Motorola split into two companies in January. The quarter is likely to be one of the company's last on its own. Google is expected to acquire Motorola Mobility early next year. The search leader's $12.5 billion acquisition offer is undergoing an extensive review by the US Justice Department. Motorola said on Thursday its shareholders will vote on the deal in a November 17 meeting. Excluding one-time items, the company earned 12 cents per share. This is double what analysts polled by FactSet expected. Popularity Revenue rose 11 per cent to $3.3 billion, slightly lower than analyst estimates. The bulk of this came from phone revenue, which rose 20 per cent to $2.4 billion. The Libertyville, Illinois-based company shipped 11.6 million phones during the quarter, 4.8 million of them smartphones. That compares with 9.1 million phones, including 3.8 million smartphones, a year ago. Motorola has not been able to bring to market a mobile phone that comes close to matching the popularity of the Razr cellphone, which it rolled out in 2004. In recent years it has been able to reposition itself as a maker of smartphones that use Google's Android operating software, with some success. Still, its smartphone sales pale compared with that of Apple's iPhone. Apple sold 17.1 million iPhones in its most recent quarter. And Motorola faces many more competitors as well, such as Samsung Electronics Co. It's also playing catch-up along with many other electronics manufacturers in the tablet computer market, where Apple's iPad reigns supreme.