Motorola's Problems Take Stock Back Toward 2003

After a number of missteps, Motorola’s stock fell from $23 in 2001 to under $7 in 2003. The stock did not make it back to $23 until late 2005 and then peaked at just above $26 late last year.

With the announcement that its cell phone business is collapsing, the stock traded down to $17.83 after hours, below its 52-week low.

Motorola (MOT) is in a boom or bust business. It is the company’s turn in the dog house, and, short term, there is nothing, northing that the company can do. The same thing happened to Nokia (NOK) when it was caught flat-footed by the introduction of the Motorola RAZR. That product, so hot only recently, is now last year’s news, and more marketable products are coming from Nokia, and, perhaps, Apple (AAPL)

Credit Suisse is now estimating that Motorola’s global handset share will drop to under 18% and Nokia’s will rise 4 points to almost 39%.

Motorola can cut jobs and buy back stock, but its core problem is that it does not have the "must have" handset product the way it did two years ago. Developing a replacement could take a year, two years, or three. It may be a "PlayStation" scenario. The leading product in a market gets old, and competitors (Microsoft (MSFT) and Nintendo) come to market with more successful alternatives.

Wall St. can bet the farm. Motorola won’t be back soon.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.