A few years ago, the outlook for Motorola wasn't very rosy. The company was failing to follow-up on the success of it ubiquitous RAZR cell phone with innovative products, and it was losing ground to the likes of Apple and HTC. The state of affairs was so bad there were reports of Motorola completely leaving the handset market.
Things began to turn around when Google's Android came into the picture, and Motorola began focusing its resources on smartphones running the open-source OS. The success of the DROID line for Verizon arguably kept Motorola afloat and helped the company set the framework for an earnest turnaround.
Still, in the first quarter of 2010, Motorola lost $212 million. So today's news that the company lost just $81 million in the same quarter of this year can be viewed as a marked improvement. According to the company's press release announcing the results, it saw a net revenue of $3.0 billion -- up 22 percent from last year, with the Mobile Devices unit earning a bulk of that pie ($2.1 billion).
Motorola says it shipped 9.3 million mobile devices in 2011 Q1, including 4.1 million smartphones and more than 250,000 tablets -- presumably all Xoom tablets. That number does not reflect units sold to end users (analysts estimate that magic number to be somewhere between an anemic 25,000 units and a not-much-better 125,000). And even the 250,000 can't hold a candle to Apple's 4.69 million iPads sold in the same period.
"In the first quarter, we reached a major milestone in our history by becoming a new independent, public company," CEO Sanjay Jha said in the press release, alluding to Motorola splitting into two separate units in January. "We enhanced our product portfolio by delivering compelling experiences with the launch of Motorola ATRIX™ and Motorola XOOM™, as well as offering unique end-to-end video solutions for the home."
The fact that Motorola had a decent quarter when its two biggest launches were a smartphone and expensive tablet that both failed to sell well is good news for the company, although it certainly would have improved the bottom line even more if the devices had fared better.
And while the outlook for the second quarter is looking promising (Motorola expects to be somewhere between break-even and $35 million in profit), Information Week is reporting that the company may be hampered by delays of a few key products. An LTE modem for the Xoom was supposed to become available by the end of Q2. But the upgrade, which requires Xoom owners to send the device to Verizon for a week, has been delayed. In addition, the next in the popular DROID line of smartphones, the DROID Bionic (announced at the same time as the Xoom), has also been delayed from a May launch to late-summer.
Jha said the delays were caused by the difficulty in working out the kinks with a new technology such as LTE. "It was really a software issue of getting the performance to a place that both ourselves and our partner, Verizon Wireless, were comfortable launching the device[s]," he told Information Week. "As you understand, there's a great deal of complexity in launching any new technology like this--that was probably the main matter at heart here."
Things began to turn around when Google's Android came into the picture, and Motorola began focusing its resources on smartphones running the open-source OS. The success of the DROID line for Verizon arguably kept Motorola afloat and helped the company set the framework for an earnest turnaround.
Still, in the first quarter of 2010, Motorola lost $212 million. So today's news that the company lost just $81 million in the same quarter of this year can be viewed as a marked improvement. According to the company's press release announcing the results, it saw a net revenue of $3.0 billion -- up 22 percent from last year, with the Mobile Devices unit earning a bulk of that pie ($2.1 billion).
Motorola says it shipped 9.3 million mobile devices in 2011 Q1, including 4.1 million smartphones and more than 250,000 tablets -- presumably all Xoom tablets. That number does not reflect units sold to end users (analysts estimate that magic number to be somewhere between an anemic 25,000 units and a not-much-better 125,000). And even the 250,000 can't hold a candle to Apple's 4.69 million iPads sold in the same period.
"In the first quarter, we reached a major milestone in our history by becoming a new independent, public company," CEO Sanjay Jha said in the press release, alluding to Motorola splitting into two separate units in January. "We enhanced our product portfolio by delivering compelling experiences with the launch of Motorola ATRIX™ and Motorola XOOM™, as well as offering unique end-to-end video solutions for the home."
The fact that Motorola had a decent quarter when its two biggest launches were a smartphone and expensive tablet that both failed to sell well is good news for the company, although it certainly would have improved the bottom line even more if the devices had fared better.
And while the outlook for the second quarter is looking promising (Motorola expects to be somewhere between break-even and $35 million in profit), Information Week is reporting that the company may be hampered by delays of a few key products. An LTE modem for the Xoom was supposed to become available by the end of Q2. But the upgrade, which requires Xoom owners to send the device to Verizon for a week, has been delayed. In addition, the next in the popular DROID line of smartphones, the DROID Bionic (announced at the same time as the Xoom), has also been delayed from a May launch to late-summer.
Jha said the delays were caused by the difficulty in working out the kinks with a new technology such as LTE. "It was really a software issue of getting the performance to a place that both ourselves and our partner, Verizon Wireless, were comfortable launching the device[s]," he told Information Week. "As you understand, there's a great deal of complexity in launching any new technology like this--that was probably the main matter at heart here."
DailyTech - Motorola Has Decent Quarter Despite Weak Xoom, Atrix Sales
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