Motorola Building a Google-Only Phone

SCHAUMBURG, Ill. (TheStreet) -- Motorola (MOT) says it is working with Google (GOOG) to make a mobile phone to be sold directly to consumers.

On a conference call with analysts Thursday, co-CEO Sanjay Jha outlined the company's plans to introduce 20 smartphones this year including "one direct to consumer device with Google." The move would be similar to Google's Nexus One phone made by HTC, which boosts Google's effort to bypass telcos and to reach consumers.

The comments came after Motorola delivered weak fourth quarter sales and guided down for the current period as rivals like Nokia (NOK) and Apple (AAPL) grab more mobile phone sales.

The wireless tech shop reported adjusted earnings, excluding one-time charges, of 9 cents a share. That was up from the penny loss in the year-ago period and a penny better than analysts' expectations of an 8 cent pro forma profit, according to Yahoo! Finance.

Sales for the fourth quarter fell 20% to $5.7 billion from the $7.1 billion level a year ago. Analysts were looking for sales of $5.9 billion.

Looking ahead, Motorola says it expects a first quarter loss of between a penny to 3 cents a share. Analysts had a 3 cent profit target for Motorola in the first quarter.

"We are just at the beginning stage of our transition to a smartphone company," co-CEO Jha said on the earnings conference call.

Motorola sold 12 million phones and of those, 2 million were Google Android-powered smartphones including the Motorola Droid at Verizon (VZ) and the Cliq at Deutsche Telekom's (DT) T-Mobile.