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Gadgets Motorola Misses Smartphone Sales Predictions
Mark Kurlyandchik - January 9, 2012 7:22 AM

13 comment(s) - last by sprockkets.. on Jan 9 at 3:34 PM

(Source: Getty Images)

Fails to hit analyst revenue predictions for Q4

It would seem that Samsung's recent success in the smartphone market is beginning to take its toll on some of its competitors. HTC recently posted dismal sales figures, and the outlook for Motorola Mobility isn't so hot, either.

Citing tough competition and patent wars, Motorola missed sales expectations for Q4. Analysts had predicted at least $3.88 billion in revenue. Motorola delivered $3.4 billion.

As for shipments, the company's early figures show 5.3 million smartphones were sold, of the 10.5 million mobile devices in all.

Motorola said that it would be modestly profitable for the quarter, but did not disclose details.

The full earnings report will be available January 26.

Meanwhile, Google is still in the process of acquiring Motorola's mobile unit, which will deepen its own roster of patents while enabling the company to really deliver an Android ecosystem. Google says that it will continue to treat Motorola Mobility as a third-party device maker, and not favor it over Motorola's competitors.

Sources: ZDNet, Mashable

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Motorola

By nirolf on 1/9/2012 10:58:33 AM , Rating: 3

Well, as a Defy user, I think the phones are great, but software support is awful. They're launching products with obsolete versions of Android, then you only get one update (long after official release) if you're lucky and that's it.
So my next phone won't be a Motorola.

RE: Motorola

By bug77 on 1/9/2012 11:37:48 AM , Rating: 3

Samsung does the same, HTC is in, too. So what are you going to buy?

The caveat is if you get an update, you get it so late, the next Android version is about to hit the market soon, so you're still left with outdated software. Well, not necessarily outdated, but certainly not cutting edge.

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RE: Motorola

By sprockkets on 1/9/2012 12:14:35 PM , Rating: 2

It takes 12-18 months to develop a phone, and only Samsung had ICS before they released the source.

Only apple has the source plus hardware under wraps ready to go on the same day.

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RE: Motorola

By aebiv on 1/9/2012 12:50:26 PM , Rating: 2

While we already have leaked builds from HTC of ICS for some of their newer phones...

HTC obviously does better at this than Samsung by your logic.

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RE: Motorola

By sprockkets on 1/9/2012 1:09:54 PM , Rating: 2

Well the Samsung Galaxy Nexus S already has ICS officially but again, they had the advantage of it being a Nexus.

In any case, didn't Samsung have an ICS build already too?

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RE: Motorola

By theapparition on 1/9/2012 1:47:04 PM , Rating: 2

Neither Samsung or HTC have official or even leaked builds for ICS on any of their phones (save the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which was purpose built for it).

So no company really does any better by that metric. What you are seeing are custom roms that have been coded from the Android source code. And there are ICS versions for many HTC and Samsung devices out now. But a developer build is a far cry from a "leaked" company build.

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