Motorola Q3 earnings preview

Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) will report its third quarter earnings tomorrow morning, and we'll see what kind of results CEO Greg Brown has been able to muster. The wireless giant, which is about to split itself up soon, now may find its wireless division spinoff not quite the saving grace it was six months ago.

Indeed, Motorola has followed up a dismal 2007 with a subpar 2008 as well. The company still can't get itself out of the hole its distinctive RAZR phone left when it debuted in 2004. Since then, the company has not followed up with any blockbuster consumer products and has let global wireless handset vendors like South Korean giants LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics to literally eat its sales and profit lunch.

As such, expectations tomorrow morning are for Motorola to earn just a penny per share at revenue of $7.83 billion. Even this would be quite a drop from the year-ago period of $0.06 per share on revenue of $8.81 billion. Handset shipments for the quarter are expected to come in under 30 million units compared to the year-ago figure of over 37 million units. Motorola, for now, does not have the product portfolio or design moxie to outgun its rivals, and global market leader Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) continues to steadily up its market share as well. Every handset vendor is nipping at Motorola's heels, and unless the company ramps up -- well, everything -- 2009 will be another year to forget.