Every time Motorola (MOT) posts a bad quarter, it seems that Nokia (NOK) posts a good one.
Motorola is losing money in its core handset business. It sold only 40 million units in the fourth quarter of last year. That puts its global market share around 12%.
Today Nokia announced its market share has moved to 40% and reported a 57 percent rise in its October-December earnings per share according to Reuters. The world’s No.1 handset firm sold almost 134 million units for the period.
So far the fourth quarter appears to have been very good for Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. That has put Motorola is a horrible position. It has no flagship product and its rivals are putting on more pressure each quarter as their pieces of the market get bigger.
A turnaround at Motorola may not just be hard. It may be impossible.
Douglas A. McIntyre