As its been warning it would, Motorola posted a quarterly loss today, as revenues continued to fall due to slow phones sales overseas and tough competition in the United Sates. The handset manufacturer posted an operating loss of $38 million, compared with a profit of $1.35 for the second quarter last year. Net sales fell 19% to $8.7 billion from $10.82 billion the same quarter last year.
During the quarter, Motorola shipped 35.5 million mobile phones, an estimated 13.5% share of the global market, most likely pushing it to third place in the global market behind Nokia and Samsung. Its mobile device unit sales fell 40% to $4.3 billion, posting a loss of $264 million, compared with earnings of $804 million a year ago.
The company said it expects earnings per share from continuing operations in the third quarter to be flat or slightly up from the second quarter earnings. But it repeated its warning that the mobile device business would not turn a profit this year, saying "it expects its financial results to improve in the second half of the year."
Motorola did announce a revenue increase for its enterprise wireless unit, posting an increase of 42% to $1.9 billion.