Motorola Earns First Revenue Increase in Years, Still Upbeat on iDEN
Motorola posted a Q3 profit of $109 million, up from $12 million a year earlier. Revenue jumped to $4.9 billion, in its first year-over-year revenue increase since 2006. The company and a few other iDEN players said they remain confident of the technology despite Sprint’s intention to phase out its network that uses it.
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Motorola shipped 9.1 million mobile phones, down from 13.6 million a year earlier. Smartphone shipments rose to 3.8 million from Q2’s 2.7 million. Co-CEO Sanjay Jha forecast Q4 growth in handset units and expects full-year unit sales to be on the upper end of previous forecasts of 12 million to 14 million units. The company remains on track to split into two in Q1, he said on a conference call Thursday.
The company expects to offer tablet devices early next year and plans to converge mobile devices with set-top boxes, executives said. The convergence offers an opportunity for content linkage and sharing between the products, they said. Motorola will focus on midrange Android phones in the quarter, Jha said.
Motorola expects to maintain a “meaningful relationship with Verizon” Wireless, Jha said. Some analysts were concerned about speculation that Verizon will start selling the iPhone next year. The carrier has been a key backer of Google’s Android platform, which Motorola’s new smartphones are based on. Verizon will continue to invest in the Droid franchise, and Motorola will keep playing a large part in the franchise, Jha said.
Meanwhile, players like Motorola, NII Holdings and SouthernLIN Wireless said they'll continue supporting iDEN. Motorola is pleased with its extended iDEN contract with NII Holdings, a Motorola spokeswoman said. The companies agreed to extend Motorola’s supplying iDEN infrastructure three years. Motorola had no comment on Sprint’s plans. NII Holdings and Motorola are committed to iDEN, Alan Strauss, NII’s vice president said. Sprint executives said this week that the carrier is moving to a single network but has no plans to force migrate iDEN customers onto its CDMA network now. Regional service provider SouthernLINC said the company will stay with iDEN, CEO Bob Dawson told us. Sprint’s departure from iDEN could affect the prices of handsets using the technology, he said. But iDEN customers from utility workers to public safety groups will still value the wide-area network coverage, Dawson said. Public safety users are expected to stay with iDEN until they have their own network, he said. There are also many international opportunities, he said.