Motorola Inc, the world's second-largest mobile phone maker, said on Wednesday that its profit jumped 48 percent in the second quarter on the strength of record shipments of cellphones and digital set-top boxes.
After it shed several unprofitable divisions over the last two years, Motorola's sales grew at all its remaining divisions. Notably, the company has been able to gain market share in handsets because of strong demand for its Razr and Q phones in the US and surging sales in China and other developing economies.
Strong performance
The strong performance was at odds with some analysts' predictions of slower industry growth in technology products including cellphones as well as the declining share prices of many technology stocks in recent months.
Motorola earned US$1.38 billion, or US$0.55 a share, in the second quarter, compared with US$933 million, or US$0.37 a share, in the corresponding period last year. It benefited from one-time gains worth US$0.21 a share.
Financial analysts had expected a profit around US$0.30 a share before the one-time gains.
Revenue reached US$10.9 billion in the quarter, nearly 30 percent more than the US$8.4 billion last year. The company expects strong sales of its cellphones to help third-quarter sales rise to a range of US$10.9 billion to US$11.1 billion. That would represent an increase of 20 percent to 23 percent compared with the same period last year.
`Stunning'
"The numbers are stunning despite all the doom and gloom around technology," said Edward Zander, Motorola's chief executive, who said his company had been gaining market share from Samsung Electronics Co, LG Electronics Inc and other rivals.
Motorola has been selling more cellphones, including the Q, that are designed for sending e-mail as well as talking. Overall, the company shipped 52 million handsets in the quarter, a 53 percent increase. It said it now controlled about 22 percent of the global handset market, 4.3 percentage points above its share in the quarter a year earlier.
Motorola said it shipped a record 2.4 million digital set-top boxes to meet demand from cable companies.
Zander said business had not been affected by the recent merger of Cisco Systems Inc and Scientific-Atlanta, the second-largest maker of set-top boxes in the US.
The company's larger competitor, Nokia Oyj, released its earnings yesterday.
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS