Things do not appear to be looking up for Motorola. While some of its latest cell phones, like the ZN4 Krave and MOTOZINE ZN5, seem to be quite solid, the company shipped far fewer phones for Q3 2008 than it had in the prior quarter of this year. Motorola reported that it moved 25.4 million cell phones in Q3, down from 28.1 million in Q2 of this year. It is worth noting that the 25.4 million figure would have put Motorola in the #4 market share position behind LG last quarter. It is a stroke of good luck for Motorola, then, that LG also saw a reduced number of units shipped in Q3, shipping only 23.0 million cell phones, which keeps it in the #4 position for now.
Motorola's Mobile Devices unit posted total sales of $3.1 billion for this past quarter, down slightly from the $3.3 billion figure it posted in Q2 of 2008, but down a massive 31% from this time last year. Motorola as a whole posted a net loss of $397 million compared with the $4 million profit it posted last quarter, due largely to the fact that the Mobile Devices unit entered a huge $840 million loss for Q3 instead of the smaller $346 million loss it posted in Q2.
Today's announcement says that we should not expect the separation of the Mobile Devices unit of Motorola from the rest of the company until sometime "beyond 2009." As part of his plan to make the company leaner in preparation for a possible sale, Motorola's Mobile Devices CEO, Sanjay Jha, is expected today to outline a plan for additional layoffs in his unit, as well as revealing a plan to drastically cut the number of mobile phone platforms his company supports. Multiple news sources have reported that his plans are to focus on Motorola's own P2K platform, Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform, and Google's new Android OS platform.
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