Mobile Device Sales Lag For Motorola Mobility
By GREG BENSINGER Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. on Tuesday posted a wider first-quarter loss after selling 4.3% fewer mobile devices compared with the year-earlier period.
Motorola, which is awaiting approval to be bought by Google Inc. for $12.5 billion, sold 8.9 million smartphones, feature phones and tablet computers, down from 9.3 million.
Bloomberg News Motorola's smartphone sales, like the Motolux, shown, increased by 24%.
However, it boosted its smartphone sales by 24% to 5.1 million, helping it raise net mobile-device revenue by 3.1%.
Motorola said its deal with Google is stalled for now in China. The sale has been cleared in the U.S. and Europe, the company said, adding that it still expects to close the transaction within the next two months.
Motorola reported a first-quarter loss of $86 million, or 28 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $81 million, or 27 cents a share. Excluding merger-related costs, amortization and stock-based compensation, the per-share loss narrowed to three cents from a year-earlier eight cents.
Sales in Motorola's set-top business declined 2.2% to $884 million and the unit had an operating profit of $68 million. The Libertyville, Ill.-based company said its mobile-device division had a wider operating loss of $121 million.
Overall revenue rose 1.5% to $3.08 billion.
Motorola's portfolio has helped the company win two favorable preliminary decisions in recent months from the U.S. International Trade Commission, which ruled against separate patent challenges from Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. over some of its smartphone features.
In February, Immersion Corp. filed complaints with the ITC alleging that some of Motorola's smartphones based on Google's Android software infringed patents related to Immersion Corp.'s touch-screen technology.
Write to Greg Bensinger at greg.bensinger@dowjones.com
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