Communications giant Motorola has reported a 56pc increase in fourth-quarter profits of US$687m over the previous year’s quarter. Positive response to the company’s phone products resulted in a 27pc increase in Q4 revenues, bringing total sales to US$8.84bn. For the full year sales were US$31.3bn, up 35pc.
The company reported wireless handset shipments of 31.8 million units, up 42pc on the previous year, representing an estimated global market share of 16.6pc, up from 13.4pc the previous year.
During the fourth quarter, Motorola generated operating profits of US$687m, up 56pc on the same quarter last year. The company generated an operating cash flow of US$717m.
Sales in Motorola’s personal communications segment in Q4 were up 51pc on the year to US$4.9bn. For the full year of 2004, sales increased 53pc and operating profits increased 257pc. The company attributed the strong performance to compelling new products such as the sleek RAZR phone (pictured). During the fourth quarter alone, Motorola shipped some 20 new handset models, all with colour displays and more than half with integrated cameras.
Motorola’s new CEO and chairman, former Sun Microsystems boss Ed Zander, commented: “The results reflect our renewed sense of urgency around quality and customer satisfaction and the ability to provide world-class, compelling new products. The response from customers worldwide to our portfolio of new products and technologies continues to be enthusiastic and is giving us market share growth in several areas.
“Importantly, the market share resurgence of the personal communications segment in the fourth quarter strengthened Motorola’s No 2 position in the wireless handset industry. We also successfully completed the full separation of our former semiconductor business into a fully independent, publicly traded company, Freescale Semiconductor,” Zander said.
By John Kennedy
