After reporting a big turnaround in the third quarter of 2009, Motorola appears to be getting on at least a little bit of a roll. The company finished 2009 with its second profit-making quarter in a row, boasting a $.06 profit per share.
Motorola made about $5.7 billion in sales during Q4. But now for the bad news: Cell phone sales are down year-over-year by 22 percent. Overall, the mobile division lost $132 million last quarter; however, that’s much smaller than an almost-$600M loss in Q4 2008.
Going forward, Motorola is confident, based on public perception of the new Droid smartphone, operating on the Verizon Wireless network in the U.S.
Investors didn’t take the sluggish mobile sales lightly. The company’s share price was off more than 12 percent just before the market’s Thursday close.
Rival Nokia, which today reported stronger earnings and an increase in its world market share lead, had a better day.
