Motorola, the struggling mobile phone maker, said its fourth quarter earnings had fallen 84 per cent as it lost market share to Apple's iPhone and products from Samsung, and forecast a loss in the next quarter.
Earnings were $100m, or 4 cents a share, down from $623m, or 25 cents a share. Revenues fell 18 per cent to $9.65bn. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected a profit of 13 cents a share on sales of $9.6bn.
The collapse in earnings lays out the challenge ahead for new chief executive Greg Brown, who took the helm at Motorola after former chief Ed Zander stepped down at the beginning of this year.
Motorola's share price has fallen more than a third in the last year as the outlook for earnings growth have slowed. On Wednesday the shares fell more than 14 per cent at the open in New York to $10.57.
The weak quarter was driven by the company's mobile phone unit, which reported an operating loss of $388m, compared with operating earnings of $341m a year earlier.
Motorola's mobile business began its plunge into loss last year, having run into trouble after failing to reproduce the success of its ultra-thin Razr model.
Motorola's share of the global mobile phone business fell from about 21 per cent to about 13 per cent in the third quarter after failing to produce excitement over new handsets, unlike others such as the iPhone. The slide in its sales saw Samsung overtake it in third place in mobile handset sales, below top selling Nokia.
"We are focused on aggressively rationalising the company's cost structure and working to get mobile devices back on track," said Greg Brown. "The recovery in mobile devices will take longer than expected and there is a lot more work to be done."
Management has been restructuring the mobile phone business, cutting 7,500 jobs and seeking to reduce costs and boost margins.
Motorola's outlook for the first quarter is a loss from continuing operations of $0.05 to $0.07 per share, excluding charges.
Shares in Motorola were down nearly 10 per cent at $11.12 in pre market trade.