Motorola Plans Layoffs, New Smartphones

Last week, Motorola announced that it had earned 21 cents per share during its most recent financial quarter. Still, its net earnings were about half of what they were in the same period of the previous year.

The company's first response to this was announcing it will be laying off 3,500 employees, or 5 percent of its global workforce.

More Smartphones, Too

The number of handsets shipped by Motorola during the quarter increased by 47 percent, but most of these are mid-range and low-end phones, the prices for which are dropping.

However, at CES earlier this month, Ron Garriques, the head of this company's mobile phone division, promised that more high-end devices are in the pipeline, especially ones with support for 3G cellular-wireless networking and/or mobile music.

Models like these typically have higher profit margins than less expensive ones.

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Via Information Week