Motorola officials said they will make $200 million in additional spending cuts even as they confidently predicted that their new smart phones will make a splash for the Christmas holiday.
The $200 million in extra cuts will be split between the cell-phone division and broadband mobility and corporate expenses. Motorola Co-CEO Greg Brown said Thursday there are "no new announcements" of additional layoffs "at this time." The cuts bring Motorola's full-year cost savings target up to $1.7 billion.
The $200 million in extra cuts will be split between the cell-phone division and broadband mobility and corporate expenses. Motorola Co-CEO Greg Brown said Thursday there are "no new announcements" of additional layoffs "at this time." The cuts bring Motorola's full-year cost savings target up to $1.7 billion.
The Schuamburg-based cell-phone maker said it recently cut 7,500 jobs. Previous announcements put the figure at 7,000.
Motorola, whose share of the cellular handset business has fallen to about 7 percent from roughly 25 percent four years ago, is working with "multiple (phone) carriers around the world" to roll out new Motorola smart phones based on the Android operating platform for the winter holidays, said Co-CEO Sanjay Jha.
Web sites have started circulating prototypes, including a phone code-named "Calgary" with a sliding design, QWERTY keyboard and social networking capabilities.
Motorola's goal is to put select high-end smart-phone services in phones priced from $100 to $200, and to focus less on selling $50 phones in emerging markets "where we weren't making money," Jha said. If Jha succeeds in separating the wireless business as a stand-alone company by Oct. 31, 2010, he stands to reap $104.4 million in compensation.
Asked whether Motorola would partner with Microsoft to make an iPhone rival, Jha said, "We are extremely open to partnering with a number of major industry players, but our focus is Android" (Google's wireless operating system).
Motorola posted a smaller first-quarter loss Thursday than Wall Street expected, and regained its standing as the world's fourth largest maker of cell phones by selling 14.7 million handsets -- half that of a year ago. The quarterly loss totaled $231 million, or 13 cents a share. Sales fell 28 percent to $5.4 billion.
Motorola has a ways to go to convince skeptics that it can turn around its sagging fortunes in the face of tough competition from Apple's iPhone, Palm's Pre and Research In Motion's Blackberry.
"Motorola has done a good job of cost-cutting to stop the hemorrhagic flow of cash out of the company, but is Motorola doing enough Research and Development to put out something RAZR-like?" said James Brehm, industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan, referring to Motorola's last top-selling phone.
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