Motorola Inc, the world's second-largest maker of cellphones, said on Thursday its fourth-quarter income rose 86 percent as it rode the continuing momentum of its ultra-slim Razr phones to record sales.
The earnings topped Wall Street estimates, but revenue and handset shipment totals came in just shy of expectations, sending shares of the Schaumburg, Illinois-based company tumbling in after-hours activity following a 4 percent jump during the regular trading session.
Net earnings for the October-through-December quarter were US$1.2 billion, or US$0.47 per share, up from US$647 million, or US$0.28 per share, a year earlier.
Excluding certain items, including a gain from a legal settlement with Turkish network operator Telsim and tax adjustments, earnings were US$0.35 per share. That was US$0.01 more than the mean estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
Revenue was US$10.43 billion, up 18 percent from US$8.84 billion although slightly below analysts' estimates of US$10.51 billion.
Motorola said it shipped 44.7 million handsets during the quarter, an increase of 40 percent compared with a year earlier and about 1 percent below analysts' estimate. It pegged its world market share at 19 percent, which would keep it a solid but distant second behind Finland's Nokia.
It launched 26 new handsets in the quarter, several of them variations on the Razr that has reinvigorated the once-slumping company since 2004.
The company said it expects first-quarter sales of between US$9.3 billion and US$9.5 billion and earnings of US$0.27 to US$0.29, excluding stock-option expenses of about US$0.02 per share. Both those forecasts are within the range expected by analysts, who had estimated sales of US$9.35 billion and per-share earnings of US$0.28.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
RSS