Motorola Mobility just sent out some updated guidance on its fourth-quarter 2010 earnings, and it's not sounding great. The company's estimating $3.4 billion in sales with "modest profitability." Some 10.5 million mobile devices were sold, with 5.3 million of them being smartphones. That's still more smartphones than the 4.8 million in shipped in the third quarter.
The ominous part of Moto's update? That the Q4 results were "impacted by the increased competitive environment in the Mobile Device business and higher legal costs associated with ongoing Intellectual Property (IP) litigations." In other words, lawsuits and competition, folks. Lawsuits and competition.
Motorola also gave a non-update on its being acquired by Google, saying that "the Company continues to work closely with Google to complete the proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility as expeditiously as possible," and that they're still expecting to close in early 2012.
Motorola will announce its Q3 earnings on Jan. 26, 2012.
Source: Motorola
