Motorola market share, profits climb

Motorola estimated its global handset market share has increased to 19% in the third quarter off of a company record 38.7 million units shipped.

The gain further cements Motorola’s lead over No. 3 handset manufacturer Samsung, which reported its own record 26.8 million phones shipped for the quarter, after being level with the Korean vendor last year. Motorola estimated its share of the market increased by 5.5 percentage points from last year’s Q3 and 1 percentage point over its position in Q2. Nokia, however, is still the unchallenged leader in handset sales. Though it hasn’t reported results for the quarter. In the second quarter, it had an estimated 33% global market share.

The increased handset sales weren’t the only good news for Motorola. The vendor posted Q3 profits of $1.75 billion, more than triple the $479 million it recorded the same quarter a year ago. Revenues rose 26% from $7.5 billion to $9.42 billion over the same period.

Sales in the handset division contributed to most of that revenues gain. Total handset sales were $5.6 billion for the quarter, up 41%. It’s network and government/enterprise units also saw revenue gains of 7% and 4% respectively.

Motorola also launched three new UMTS phones targeted at European markets, including new 3G version of its popular RAZR.