Motorola Q1 Sales Climb 23% Year over Year

Online Staff -- Electronic News, 4/19/2006

Motorola Inc. said Tuesday that it saw record Q1 sales of $10.01 billion, a 23 percent increase from $8.16 billion in Q1 2005.

Earnings per share for Q1 were 27 cents, a decrease of 4 percent from 28 cents in Q1 2005. Q1 earnings include stock compensation expenses and reorganization of business charges.

During the quarter, the company generated operating cash flow of approximately $700 million. In addition Motorola said that it significantly accelerated its stock repurchase program during the quarter and repurchased approximately 37 million shares of its stock for approximately $815 million.

Moto's mobile devices segment sales were $6.4 billion, up 45 percent compared with the year-ago quarter. Operating earnings increased to $702 million, compared with operating earnings of $440 million in the year-ago quarter. Motorola shipped a record 46.1 million handsets, up 61 percent compared to Q1 2005.

"We are very pleased about our results, which set a record for first-quarter sales. The company continues to profitably grow revenue and market share," said Ed Zander, Motorola chairman and CEO, in a statement. "In order to further build on this success, we announced a streamlined corporate structure to improve efficiency and reduce costs as well as an agreement to sell Motorola's automotive business."
 
Motorola's outlook for Q2 is sales of between $10.3 billion and $10.5 billion and earnings per share in the range of 30 cents to 32 cents.