Without a Hit Razr Sequel, Profit Drops for Motorola
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Motorola executives said demand for the companyâs cellphones had slowed and the company was losing market share.
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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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With a sleek design and an even sleeker advertising campaign, Motorola Inc. is banking on its new Razr2 cell phone to pump up anemic sales and provide a rosier future after a yearlong slump punctuated by back-to-back losses.
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The head of Motorola Inc.'s cell phone business resigned Friday, focusing new attention on a division whose performance has faltered after two years of success fueled by Razr handsets.
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(InfoWorld) - Motorola has a strategy for improving its struggling cell phone business: Be boring. That's what CFO Tom Meredith said on Wednesday during the Citi Investment Research Global Technology Conference. "I believe we can right our ship by being boringly consistent," he said during a webcast of the conference. Motorola's history as a cell-phone developer is anything but boring, littered with iconic phones from the StarTac clamshell 10 years ago to the recent hit with the Razr. But you'd be hard pressed to name an iconic product from market leader Nokia or Sony Ericsson, Meredith noted. "Yet, when you look at their profitability and successes, you see they have a portfolio that was complete and ran the gauntlet from mass market to feature to enterprise, and they effectively competed more effectively than we did," he said. Taking a cue from competitors, Motorola will focus going forward on developing a broad portfolio of phones that will be attractive to a wide range of users rather than looking for the next Razr, he said. Combined with a couple of other new strategies, Motorola should be able to regain lost market share, he said. For instance, Motorola hopes to do better in developing markets like India and China. While Meredith didn't describe how, he did point to ways that the company has stumbled there recently. He said that Motorola missed an opportunity with its Moto phone, which was designed to be a low-end handset for developing markets. That phone failed because it didn't have a color screen and neglected to recognize how important texting is in its target markets, he said. Motorola should also benefit from some developments Apple's iPhone has spurred. Operators have historically resisted including Wi-Fi capabilities in phones, he said. But because the iPhone includes Wi-Fi, the operators are starting to come around and recognize that it's inevitable, Meredith said. "I think Steve [Jobs] and Apple did companies like Motorola a favor in that regard," he said. The iPhone may also have generated interest in the touchscreen concept. Motorola has sold 12 million phones with touchscreens, primarily in China, but hasn't targeted them to North America. The company is still watching the market and listening to carriers, but it may introduce touchscreen phones in North America, he said. Motorola recently reported that slow sales of mobile phones contributed to a second quarter loss of $28 million.Â It also cut 3,500 jobsÂ in the first half of the year and is in the process ofÂ laying off another 4,000. The struggles have put company CEO Ed Zander in the spotlight, but the board has not had a "no confidence" vote in their leader, Meredith said, in response to a question from the audience.
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Stocks fell on Wednesday after some  quarterly earnings reports failed to impress investors,  including a disappointing outlook from Motorola Inc. MOT.N,  which stoked concerns about lackluster technology spending.
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Cell phone maker Motorola warned of a second-quarter profit and sales shortfall, blaming poor results in its mobile devices business in Asia and Europe.
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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 may spin off its handset business, the weakest part of a wireless giant that has seen hard times and a management shakeup in recent months.The company is &quot;exploring the structural and strategic realignment of its businesses to better equip its Mobile Devices Business to recapture global market leadership and to enhance shareholder value,&quot; Motorola said in a statement Thursday. &quot;The company&#39;s alternatives may include the separation of Mobile Devices from its other businesses.&quot;The handset unit has had trouble coming up with a successor to the popular Razr phone, and in last year&#39;s third quarter it fell to third place in worldwide sales behind Samsung. But spinning off the division, which forms the largest part of Motorola&#39;s business, would be a drastic move.Motorola had 13 percent of the worldwide handset market in last year&#39;s third quarter, down from a 21 percent share a year earlier, according to Gartner. Samsung had 15 percent and Nokia 38 percent.Thursday&#39;s announcement doesn&#39;t guarantee the handset business will be spun off. CEO Greg Brown said in the statement that Motorola was exploring ways in which the unit can recover faster and retain and attract talent, plus help shareholders &quot;realize the value of this great franchise.&quot;In its fourth-quarter results announced last week, Motorola said the Mobile Devices Business lost $388 million on revenue of $4.8 billion, down from a profit of $341 million on revenue of $7.8 billion a year earlier. 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&#160;Motorola&#39;s acquisition of Symbol Technologies&#160;early last year.Motorola as a whole lost $49 million for the year.&#160;CEO Ed Zander stepped down in late November, replaced by Brown.
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Motorola Inc. , the world's  second biggest cellphone maker, said on Wednesday its  second-quarter earnings and revenue rose on a tax benefit and a  legal settlement as well as strong demand for its cellphones,  including its flagship Razr phone.
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Motorola rode high for a while on sales of its slim, stylish Razr phone. When its competitive edge started to dull, the company set its hopes on the Q, a BlackBerry-like e-mail phone, which it initially thought would sell as well as the Razr.
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Motorola is to shed an extra 4,000 jobs this year, as it continues efforts to reverse a fall in profits.
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(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.
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Motorola Inc.  on Thursday posted a quarterly loss as revenue fell amid weak phone sales, as it loses market share.
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Motorola Inc  said on Wednesday  it will post an operating loss in the current quarter as  recovery in its cell phone business is taking longer than  expected, dashing Wall Street expectations for a profit and  sending its shares down as much as 14 percent.
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(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
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(InfoWorld) - Two days after it restructured operations, MotorolaÂ on Thursday reported that flagging sales of mobile devices were a factor in its second-quarter loss of $28 million, or $0.01 per share. The telecommunications device maker posted income of $1.38 million, or $0.55 cents a share, one year earlier. Revenue declined by 19 percent to $8.73 billion from $10.82 billion one year earlier. The drop was expected: Motorola issuedÂ preliminary financialsÂ last week, warning that its results would be lower than had been forecast. The company said Thursday that excluding one-time costs, it would have earned $0.02 per share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, who revised estimates lower after last week's warning, were forecasting break-even results on sales of $8.64 billion. Layoffs and other one-time charges were responsible for losses amounting to $0.04 per share. But the loss for the quarter underscores the company's beleaguered mobile device business, which has been outflanked by rivals including Apple. The pressure will continue. Motorola announced that it expects earnings in the third quarter to be equal to or slightly higher than the second quarter, and that its mobile devices unit will probably not be profitable this year. The company saw a drop in mobile device sales in Asia, a hot market where vendors are trying to get a big share of the market in fast growing economies, as North American and European markets become saturated with mobile phones. Motorola has taken steps to address its problems. The vendor announced Tuesday that it's restructuring into three business divisions: Mobile Devices, Home and Networks Mobility, and Enterprise Mobility Solutions. It also has a new chief of its mobile unit, Stu Reed. Motorola CEO Ed Zander has beenÂ under pressureÂ to resign. He attracted criticism from big-name investor Carl Icahn earlier this year, and recently has been attacked by activist shareholder Eric Jackson for the way he's running the company. Although Motorola has taken steps to cut costs, a core challenge for the company is product design in the competitive handset arena. ItsÂ Razr deviceÂ was praised for its design, but in a fast-paced market quickly became an also-ran, under a barrage of products from rivals that in addition to Apple include Nokia, Samsung Electronics, and LG Electronics. Despite expecting mobile phone sales to be under increasing pressure, Motorola did say that it expected its overall financial results to improve during the second half of the year. Thursday morning, Motorola shares were trading at $18.18, up $0.18 from its opening. Â