Samsung gives Motorola the cold shoulder; follows LG, Sony Ericsson lead
By Will Park on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 9:59 AM PST In Announcements, Financial, Motorola, Samsung
Add Samsung to the list of mobile phone manufacturers that are unwilling to buy Motorola (NYSE: MOT)’s ailing handset division. Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) doesn’t want anything to do with it, LG is staying away, and now Samsung’s announced that they don’t want to take a bite of Motorola’s profit-free concoction.
Choi Gee-sung, head of Samsung’s mobile phone unit, told Yonhap News that Samsung would not be buying Motorola’s mobile phone division. Apparently, Motorola offers too many “overlapping areas and too little gain” and would not be a good “supplement” to Samsung’s operations.
Samsung has already overtaken Motorola as the No. 2 mobile phone manufacturer, and it just doesn’t make fiscal sense to buy Motorola’s handset division (which is valued at $9 to $12 billion).
It’s a good thing Motorola CEO Greg Brown is “fully committed” to Motorola’s handset operations. Seeing as how he recently took direct control of the unit, we’d certainly hope so.
[Via: Reuters]
