Motorola profits in Q3

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Apple's main PowerPC manufacturer Motorola announced a profitable third quarter on 14 per cent less sales yesterday.



The company returned sales of $6.4 billion and net earnings of $111 million, or $.05 per share in the quarter.



This represents a sales decrease of 14 per cent from $7.4 billion for the year-ago period. However - the year-ago net loss for the same period was $1.4 billion.



Motorola president and chief operating officer Mike Zafirovski said: "Our improvement in profitability in the third quarter is a solid indication that our focus on customers, coupled with the aggressive and timely restructuring of the company that began two years ago, is bearing results in a difficult economic environment."



He added: "At the same time, we continue to invest in research and development, improving customer relationships, and bringing new products to market as we balance our focus on both short- and long-term results."



<a href="http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_news.cfm?NewsID=5412"; target="_blank">Macworld UK</a>

macsrgood4u

Motorola has also had an on going program of closing plants and triming their work force. These have been the primary reason for the quarter profit because as you mention, sales have delcined. (Sales delcined for Intel as well due to the slowing of computer sales across the board). Today should be interesting as Apple reports its' quarterly results at 5 PM (live webcast). They previously predicted a slight loss but look for a gain of a penny or two.