Moto returns to profitability, barely

Motorola ended its two-quarter loss streak this week, posting a slight profit for the third quarter but off of much lower revenue and handset shipments than it had in previous boom years.

The vendor shipped 37.2 million devices in the third quarter and garnered a global market share of 13%, far below the post-20% shares it posted last year when Motorola was making gains on handset leader Nokia. Now Nokia’s lead has only increased—it estimated its own market share at 38% last week—while Motorola saw itself passed by Samsung in global handset shipments.

The bright spot in the handset business, however, was the Razr2, the next-generation version of the Razr phone that drove sales for three years. Motorola has shipped 900,000 of the new devices. Its handset division’s overall sales for the quarter came in at $4.5 billion, though, a 36% drop year-over-year.

Moto’s networks division fared better, posting a 6% increase in revenue year-over-year to $2.4 billion. The division’s operating earnings, however, fell from $231 million to $165 million. While the newly reorganized home and networks division contains everything from CDMA infrastructure to set-top boxes, it is also the home of its new WiMAX product line, which ramped into commercial production this summer.