Motorola has been having a tough time recently, and as GU reports, has just predicted a loss in the second quarter on lower than expected sales.
It blamed a sharp drop in sales of mobile handsets across Asia and Europe. It only sold 36m phones, down from 45m in the first quarter.
Sony Ericsson, however, has seen sales boom: it shipped 24.9 million handsets in the quarter, up 59% on last year. What used to be a tiny, failing London-based operation is now within striking distance of the once-mighty Moto.
The joint venture between Sweden's LM Ericsson and Japan's Sony Corp. said net profit rose 54% to 220 million euros ($303 million) from 143 million euros in the same period last year.
Sony Ericsson seems to have done well with its Walkman-branded music and camera phones, where Motorola had a bad time with the ROKR, famously produced in association with Apple. Motorola has also been the leading proponent of Linux-based phones, but there's no indication whether this helped or hindered either sales or profits.
Motorola is run by Ed Zander, who used to be at another failing company: Sun Microsystems. And as Graeme Wearden's GU story noted:
Despite the profit warning, shares in Motorola rose nearly 2% yesterday amid speculation that Mr Zander's tenure could soon be over.
