Motorola's Shares Surge With Unexpected Profit

ANDREW VANACORE

NEW YORK (AP) — The turnaround effort long sought at Motorola Inc. finally could be on track.

The maker of communications equipment reported an unexpected quarterly profit Thursday as losses in its mobile phone division narrowed. The company also forecast stronger-than-anticipated earnings for last three months of the year, sending its shares up 11 percent.

Though sales continued to fall, the results marked Motorola's second straight quarterly profit after heavy losses and shrinking market share in the cell phone business. Aggressive cost cutting, including 8,000 layoffs this year, have helped bolster earnings.

Co-CEO Sanjay Jha, hired last year from Qualcomm Inc. to help reverse Motorola's slide, is banking on new phones that run by Google Inc.'s Android operating system. Two of the phones — including a device called the Droid introduced Wednesday by Verizon Wireless — will be available as the holiday shopping season arrives.

Coinciding with the release, Motorola offered an upbeat forecast for the holiday quarter. It expects adjusted earnings of 7 cents to 9 cents per share, while analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had been expecting 6 cents.