Motorola confirms it's working on a Google phone; company reports earnings

Financial website The Street is reporting that during a conference call today with analysts to discuss Motorola's latest quarterly report (more on that, later), co-CEO Sanjay Jha  announced that his firm will turn out 20 smartphone models this year including "one direct to consumer device with Google." This would be similar to HTC manufacturing the recently launched Nexus One for the Mountain View based Google. That handset is sold only through the latter's web site thus bypassing retail channels and carriers. We recently reported that the Motorola Shadow could be the next in line to be the "Nexus Two". The Shadow is expected to have a 4.3 inch display with resolution of 480 x 800 pixels, an 8MP camera with flash and AF, and a physical QWERTY keyboard. The handset supports GSM and is expected to be enclosed in a white casing with an opening for a wrist strap.

The comments by Jha came after Motorola reported weak 4th quarter sales, and even told analysts to lower their expectation for profits in the current three month period that ends in March. 12 million phones were sold by Motorola in the current period with 2 million of them being Android powered smartphones, the DROID and the Cliq. The former, sold by Verizon, garnered great reviews with some writing that Verizon now had a smartphone that could stand up next to the iPhone. The latter, featuring the MotoBlur UI, is sold through T-Mobile and with its social networking integration, is being positioned as a phone for the Facebook/MySpace/Twitter crowd. After excluding charges, Motorola earned 9 cents a share for the quarter, up from a 1 cent loss in the prior year. Sales declined 20% to $5.7 million. While analysts were looking for a first quarter profit of 3 cents a share, Motorola guided them down to a loss of 1 to 3 cents per share. Jha told analysts, "We are just at the beginning stage of our transition to a smartphone company."

source: TheStreet via UnwiredView