Motorola Inc., the world's second-largest cell phone maker, said Tuesday that quarterly profits rose on higher sales as the end markets for its products showed across-the-board strength.
Motorola also forecast first-quarter earnings in line with Wall Street's expectations, but saw sales rising more than analysts had forecast on average.
The Schaumburg, Illinois, company reported a fourth-quarter net profit of $489 million, or 20 cents a share, compared with $174 million, or 8 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter. Excluding one-time items, Motorola earned 17 cents a share, topping analysts' estimates for a 13-cent profit according to Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Group Plc.
Sales in the quarter rose 4 percent to $8.02 billion from the year-ago quarter, and increased 17 percent from the previous quarter. Analysts had expected $7.73 billion, Reuters Research said.
Motorola said in October it expected fourth-quarter net earnings of 8 cents to 12 cents a share on sales in the range of $7.5 billion to $7.8 billion. Excluding one-time items, it said it expected to earn 11 cents to 15 cents a share. The company repeated that forecast in November and last month.