Nokia (NOK) sneaks up on Motorola (NOK)

Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is getting kicked while it is down. Not that the company has done a good job of keeping its cellphone sales going. It does not have a single "hot" product. Its global market share is around 13%, depending on who is measuring. Analysts are cutting the number of handsets that they think the US company sold in the first quarter.

The one place Motorola does have good market share is the US. With 35% of the market, it is the leader. Nokia (NYSE: NOK) as only 10% against its global share of 40%. Nokia plans to change that. According to The Wall Street Journal : "Nokia is making mostly behind-the-scenes changes. It is cooperating with the large carriers such as AT&T (NYSE: T) that control how most phones are sold to customers in the U.S. and has started designing phones specifically for North America."

While the news could be good for Nokia, if it is successful, it would not have a huge impact on its financials. The company already sells over 400 million handsets and does particularly well in fast-growing markets in China.

Any share Motorola loses in the US would be devastating. The company lost about $1 billion in its handset division on $19 billion in revenue last year. Those numbers are likely to be worse for 2008.

When Motorola announced its was breaking the company in two, its share price barely moved. It may be occurring to Wall Street that the company is not worth more than the sum of its parts, especially with its largest division doing so poorly and under pressure from competition.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.