Motorola Swings to $86M Loss in Q1, Shipments Down

Motorola Mobility yesterday reported an operating loss of $86 million for the first quarter of 2012, on $3.1 billion in revenues and a drop in total shipments of mobile devices. Motorola said it shipped 8.9 million mobile devices, down from 10.5 million in the previous quarter. Fully 5.1 million of those devices shipped were smartphones. This quarter, Motorola launched the Razr Maxx and DROID 4, both high-end LTE-capable Android smartphones. The company also expanded its portfolio of cheaper Android smartphones in China, Europe and Latin America with the Motoluxe and Defy Mini. Home segment net revenues in the first quarter were $884 million, down 2 percent compared with the year-ago quarter. Non-GAAP operating earnings were $91 million compared to $81 million in the year-ago quarter. Motorola did not hold an earnings call in light of pending approval of Google’s bid to purchase the company for $12.5 billion. The deal is currently in a holding pattern as both companies work to secure approval from China. The transaction has been investigated and cleared in all other jurisdictions with pre-closing clearance requirements. Motorola's portfolio of 17,000 patents played a key role in the deal. Google needed a way to bolster its intellectual property holdings to fend off patent lawsuits after placing failed bids on patent portfolios held by Novell and Nortel. Google claims that Apple and Microsoft are using their patents to wage a "hostile, organized campaign" against Android by burdening the platform with costly licensing fees. Google said when it announced the merger in August it expected to close the deal by the end of the year or early 2012.