Motorola said today its fourth-quarter profits fell 48 per cent despite record sales as operating results stumbled during the key holiday selling season.
The earnings drop came two weeks after the company warned that both sales and profits would come in well below expectations amid evidence that discounting prices of its high-end phones had hurt its bottom line.
Net profit for the last three months of 2006 was $624 million, or 25 cents per share, down from $1.2 billion, or 46 cents per share, a year earlier.
Results included a net gain of five cents per share for various charges. Excluding those items, Motorola said earnings from continuing operations were 21 cents a share, or better than the 13 cents to 16 cents it forecast two weeks ago.
Revenue was $11.8 billion, up 17 per cent from $10 billion a year ago and slightly above Wall Street's $11.7 billion estimate.
The company said it expects sales between $10.4 billion and $10.6 billion in the first quarter, in line with analysts' forecast of $10.5 billion.