Motorola Mobility posts ‘modest’ Q4 profits

Motorola Mobility, the mobile division of Motorola, has announced flat fourth-quarter sales and “modest profitability.” The company says its profits were impacted by mobile device competition and high legal costs.

by Adi Robertson

Source Motorola Mobility | Via AllThingsD

Jan 7, 2012, 1:29 AM UTC

Droid XYBoard

Adi Robertson is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.

Motorola Mobility, which manufactures the Droid smartphone line and Xoom tablet, has just announced flat fourth-quarter sales and "modest profitability." According to preliminary reports, the company took in $3.4 billion in sales. A total of 10.5 million mobile devices were sold, including 5.3 million smartphones. That's a slight uptick in smartphones compared to the 4.9 million sold in the fourth quarter of 2010, but a lower total than the 11.3 million total handsets sold in the same period.

Motorola says its earnings “were impacted by the increased competitive environment in the Mobile Device business and higher legal costs associated with ongoing Intellectual Property (IP) litigations,” possibly including its ongoing suit against Apple, the contentious case with Microsoft, and litigation by Intellectual Ventures. The company also brought up its upcoming acquisition by Google, which it expects to be completed early this year.

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