What an attitude!

Motorola has to move beyond ‘just’ handsets if it has to treat its plummetting share prices & market share issues

“Motorola has an attitude problem. It thinks it is an amazing company with amazing products. The only problem is that its customers don’t agree,” asserts a confident Jeff Kagan, Telecom Anaylst & Expert. Well, we don’t want to agree outrightly, but beg to add – even investors don’t! Look at its share price on NYSE. ‘Accelerating downhill’ is perhaps the only words you’d use to explain its movement; currently at $16.30 (as on December 10, 2007) – and simply sad days with its share price hitting the lowest levels in 7 years! And this was also confirmed by Gartner Inc on November 27, 2007 when it disclosed how Motorola’s mobile handset global market share had slipped to 13.1% during Q3 2007 from 20.7% during the previous year. The Gartner revelation was followed by Edward Zander’s announcement of an exit on November 30. 2007, alongwith Padmasree Warrior, the CTO – two chiefs who had led Motorola’s revival in the past.

So has the Moto boat hit the rough seas? As per a telecom analyst, “Motorola has once again lost its way. This happened in the 1990’s when the networks switched to digital. That’s when Nokia took the lead.” And what does its financials reveal? Sadly, nothing different! With revenues earned during Q3 2007 touching just $88.11 billion, representing a y-o-y decline of 16.9% and with a lack of a “must have” product felt, Motorola surely has a tough job up its sleeve as Jeff agrees, “Motorola has to break some new ground. We have not seen anything along those lines yet.” Evidently, there’s some ray of hope at the end of the tunnel with Motorola’s announcement on December 6, 2007 that its forecast for Q4 2007 earnings still remain positive as Tom Meredith, CFO, Motorola Inc. declared: “a continuing operational earnings forecast of $0.12-0.14 cents per share”. Surely, Motorola has to move beyond just delivering a killer handset. It has to necessarily focus on its other more successful arms like home and networks mobility and enterprise mobility (its 2nd and 3rd largest units), which allow the company to fall back on other sources of revenue. Clearly, for now, Motorola needs to get ‘stuck’ things ‘rolling’...

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-
ZEE BUSINESS BEST B SCHOOL SURVEY
B-schooled in India, Placed Abroad (Print Version)
IIPM in Financial times (Print Version)
IIPM makes business education truly global (Print Version)
The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM)
IIPM Campus

Top Articles on IIPM:-
IIPM makes business education truly global-Education-The Times of ...
The Hindu : Education Plus : Honour for IIPM
IIPM ranked No.1 B-School in India, Management News - By ...
IIPM Ranked No1 B-School in India
Moneycontrol >> News >> Press- News >> IIPM ranked No1 B-School in ...
IIPM ranked No. 1 B-school in India- Zee Business Survey ...
IIPM ranked No1 B-School in India :: Education, Careers ...
The Hindu Business Line : IIPM placements hit a high of over 2000 jobs
Deccan Herald - IIPM ranked as top B-School in India
India eNews - IIPM Ranked No1 B-School in India
IIPM Delhi - Indian Institute of Planning and Management New Delhi ...
domain-b.com : IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs