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Motorola shipped 10.5 million mobile phones in Q4 2011, and only 5.3 million of those were smartphones

Categories: Android, Motorola
By: , IntoMobile
Monday, January 9th, 2012 at 12:47 AM
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Motorla doesn’t get a whole lot of love these days, partially due to the fact that people are waiting to see what Google is going to do with them assuming that Google gets approval to gobble up the fledging handset vendor. With so many awesome devices out on the market from the likes of Apple, HTC, and Samsung, do people still even buy Motorola devices? Besides the RAZR, which came out during the last few seconds of 2011, can you name any Motorola hardware that had a meaningful impact in 2011? Yea, not so easy now is it? Anyway, the company has just announced that during the last three months of last year, better known as the holiday shopping season, they shipped 10.5 million phones, of which 5.3 million were smartphones. That’s pretty pathetic considering that they’re an international player. It’s assumed that Samsung shipped 35 million smartphones during the same quarter, and there are many analysts betting Apple will also hit that 35 million figure, so 5.3 million … really?

This begs the question, what exactly does Google want with Motorola? Is it really just a patent play or do they want to turn the company around and make them a viable competitor? Benedict Evans, an independent analyst, recently posted a startling image to Twitter (above) along with a very important question: Is Android driving Samsung or is Samsung driving Android? If Samsung is indeed responsible for the huge success of Android, then Google should rightly be scared of that success since Samsung can just turn on a dime and become the largest promoter of Windows Phone or even their home grown Bada OS.

Watch this space. We don’t see Google facing any hurdles with government entities regarding their purchase of Motorola, and we definitely don’t see Google purchasing Motorola simply because they want their patents. There’s a story that’s not being told here.

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

  • Anonymous

    Tax reductions on billions due to losses from motorola…
    patents 20 000
    Hardware
    and more………
    Next step may be buying Verizon …sothat it can be all in all

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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_HRKVHDJGT4BR6MOHMK3OPRXAT4 Red777

    MMI’s patents have not precluded Motorola from beign sued by both Apple and Microsoft. What good is this “defense”. Tell that to HTC who just lost at the ITC and will have to remove a “tap to dial” feature in its Android smartphones that was found to infringe — will then Android contiue to offer that as part of Android when one OEM waas found to infringe while using that feature or will they allow other OEM’s to continue to infringe while HTC is forced to change its products.  In other words creating non-parity among Android licensees.  In the meantime, each of Samsung and HTC have settled with Microsoft to pay not only licensing fees to Microsoft, BUT also to support/promote Windows platform smartphones.

    Add to that the fact that MMI’s smartphone business shipped an anemic 5.3MM units, 1/7 that of each of Samsung or Apple, in 4Q, and a MMI cable set-top box business that is going the way of the dinosaur as the disruption in the television space is driving innovation  in the television itself for “smart” TV’s.  Add it all up, for GOOG shareholders, better to let the European Competition Commisison (which is investigating GOOG on its anti-competitive practices) quietly stop the deal and instead for GOOG to pay MMI the $2B break-up fee and call it a hangover moment for Larry Page that drove him to do such a monumentally stupid deal.