Cellphone maker Motorola Inc. on Wednesday said that net quarterly earnings rose from a year earlier on higher sales, handily beating the highest Wall Street forecasts.
Motorola, which trails larger rival Nokia in handset sales, said it earned $692 million, or 28 cents a share in the first quarter, compared with $609 million, or 25 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Sales rose to $8.16 billion from $7.44 billion a year earlier, Motorola said.
Analysts polled by Reuters Estimates expected earnings per share of 19 cents before items, or 20 cents on a net basis, on revenue of $7.72 billion. The highest forecast for the quarter of all analysts polled was for earnings per share of 22 cents before items.
For the current quarter, Motorola forecast earnings per share of 23 cents to 25 cents on revenue of $8.3 billion to $8.5 billion. Analysts had expected earnings per share of 22 cents on revenue of $8.07 billion in the quarter.
