Filed under: Products and services, Competitive strategy, Motorola (MOT)

After Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) stated it was considering options to spin off or sell its money-losing wireless handset division a few weeks ago, the company’s new CEO, Greg Brown, stated that the company is “fully committed” to the mobile device business. Okay — which is it? Brown went on: “Motorola is fully committed to the mobile devices business and I am fully committed to mobile devices.” Fully committed to keeping it in-house or selling it off? One has to wonder.

Motorola’s brand in the cellphone business is a very good one, although that division’s profit troubles and sales numbers have been really horrid in the last 12 months. Still, unless the company could easily be worth more to shareholders if split up (i.e., Carl Icahn), then refocusing efforts in its handset division should be a top priority. Motorola was once on top of the world with the RAZR. There’s no reason it can’t be there again.

It’s hard to believe that Motorola’s brand recognition in the ultra-competitive handset business is tarnished. It’s just the sales and profit that’s lacking. So, within the fast pace that the handset business works in, Brown’s test will be to fix those problems and get Motorola’s nameplate again at the top of the sales charts. The market might give him all of 2008 to do so, but many investors, unfortunately, want instant gratification after former CEO Ed Zander’s results.

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Filed under: Products and services, Competitive strategy, Motorola (MOT)

After Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) said it was considering options to spin off or sell its money-losing wireless handset division a few weeks ago, the company’s new CEO, Greg Brown, said that the company is “fully committed” to the mobile device business. Okay — which is it? Brown went on: “Motorola is fully committed to the mobile devices business and I am fully committed to mobile devices.” Fully committed to keeping it in-house or selling it off? One has to wonder.

Motorola’s brand in the cellphone business is a very good one, although that division’s profit troubles and sales numbers have been really horrid in the last 12 months. Still, unless the company could easily be worth more to shareholders if split up (i.e., Carl Icahn), then refocusing efforts in its handset division should be a top priority. Motorola was once on top of the world with the RAZR. There’s no reason it can’t be there again.

It’s hard to believe that Motorola’s brand recognition in the ultra-competitive handset business is tarnished. It’s just the sales and profit that’s lacking. So, within the fast pace that the handset business works in, Brown’s test will be to repair those problems and get Motorola’s nameplate again at the top of the sales charts. The market may give him all of 2008 to do so, but many investors, unfortunately, want instant gratification after former CEO Ed Zander’s results.

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Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Bad news, Management, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Ford Motor (F)

Shares of Visteon Corp. (NYSE: VC) are slipping in morning trading after the company posted a bigger fourth-quarter loss and announced it would continue its restructuring plan.

The auto parts supplier reported a wider fourth-quarter loss of $43 million, hurt by restructuring costs and write-downs. Included in the company’s loss was $30 million related to non-cash asset impairments and $32 million related to restructuring expenses.

However, the company’s loss per share of 33 cents managed to beat analysts’ estimates for a much more massive quarterly loss of 55 cents per share. Visteon’s revenue also saw a small increase of only 2% $2.86 billion from $2.81 billion in the same period of last year.

Smaller sales to Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), the company’s former parent, also put pressure on Visteon gains during 2007. Lower North American production volume brought a decline of 14% to $4.1 billion in the company’s sales to Ford. Meanwhile, product sales to other customers saw a growth of 11% to $6.6 billion, which is 61% of total product sales. Thus, Visteon posted a loss of $372 million, or $2.87 per share for 2007, with revenue coming in at $11.27 billion.

Looking ahead, the auto parts supplier announced it restructuring plan remains on track. Visteon, which has started its restructuring plan three years ago, anticipates to fix, sell or close eight facilities this year to reduce costs on climate controls, interiors and electronics. Back in January, Visteon also revealed plans to shut the doors of a fuel tank assembly plant in Concordia, Missouri, during the third quarter.

For 2008, the company doesn’t show too much optimism and anticipates to see lower output for its key customer programs in North America and Europe. Visteon expects 2008 earnings figures to range from a loss of $25 million to a profit of $25 million, on revenue of about $9.7 billion. Free cash flow is also expected to come in under negative values in a range between $350 million and $250 million.

Visteon had a pretty difficult past year and it looks like its shares are not poised for a rebound. Traders are sharing the company’s pessimism over its further gains and pushed shares of the stock down 0.7% in early morning trading.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the on the web investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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Filed under: Products and services, Competitive strategy, Motorola (MOT)

After Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) said it was considering options to spin off or sell its money-losing wireless handset division a few weeks ago, the company’s new CEO, Greg Brown, said that the company is “fully committed” to the mobile device business. Okay — which is it? Brown went on: “Motorola is fully committed to the mobile devices business and I am fully committed to mobile devices.” Fully committed to keeping it in-house or selling it off? One has to wonder.

Motorola’s brand in the cellphone business is a very good one, although that division’s profit troubles and sales numbers have been really horrid in the last 12 months. Still, unless the company could easily be worth more to shareholders if split up (i.e., Carl Icahn), then refocusing efforts in its handset division should be a top priority. Motorola was once on top of the world with the RAZR. There’s no reason it can’t be there again.

It’s hard to believe that Motorola’s brand recognition in the ultra-competitive handset business is tarnished. It’s just the sales and profit that’s lacking. So, within the fast pace that the handset business works in, Brown’s test will be to mend those problems and get Motorola’s nameplate again at the top of the sales charts. The market may give him all of 2008 to do so, but many investors, unfortunately, want instant gratification after former CEO Ed Zander’s results.

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Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Bad news, Management, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Ford Motor (F)

Shares of Visteon Corp. (NYSE: VC) are slipping in morning trading after the company posted a more massive fourth-quarter loss and announced it would continue its restructuring plan.

The auto parts supplier reported a wider fourth-quarter loss of $43 million, injured by restructuring costs and write-downs. Included in the company’s loss was $30 million related to non-cash asset impairments and $32 million related to restructuring expenses.

However, the company’s loss per share of 33 cents managed to beat analysts’ estimates for a much larger quarterly loss of 55 cents per share. Visteon’s revenue also saw a small increase of only 2% $2.86 billion from $2.81 billion in the same period of last year.

Smaller sales to Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), the company’s former parent, also put pressure on Visteon gains during 2007. Lower North American production volume brought a decline of 14% to $4.1 billion in the company’s sales to Ford. Meanwhile, product sales to other customers saw a growth of 11% to $6.6 billion, which is 61% of total product sales. Thus, Visteon posted a loss of $372 million, or $2.87 per share for 2007, with revenue coming in at $11.27 billion.

Looking ahead, the auto parts supplier announced it restructuring plan remains on track. Visteon, which has started its restructuring plan three years ago, expects to fix, sell or close eight facilities this year to reduce costs on climate controls, interiors and electronics. Back in January, Visteon also revealed plans to shut the doors of a fuel tank assembly plant in Concordia, Missouri, during the third quarter.

For 2008, the company doesn’t show too much optimism and anticipates to see lower output for its key customer programs in North America and Europe. Visteon anticipates 2008 earnings figures to range from a loss of $25 million to a profit of $25 million, on revenue of about $9.7 billion. Free cash flow is also expected to come in under negative values in a range between $350 million and $250 million.

Visteon had a pretty difficult past year and it looks like its shares are not poised for a rebound. Traders are sharing the company’s pessimism over its further gains and pushed shares of the stock down 0.7% in early morning trading.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the on the web investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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Filed under: Earnings reports, Competitive strategy, Comcast Cl’A’ (CMCSA), Verizon Communications (VZ)

Back in August, I labeled Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) as a ’slacker stock,’ “which like its human equivalent spends his days sitting on the coach playing video games in his underwear and whining about his lot in life.” Now, the world’s largest cable company, which has dropped more than 30% this year, has finally grown up.

The Philadelphia-based company reported that net income soared 54% to $602 million, or 20 cents per share, beating the 17 cent consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Sales surged 14% to $8.01 billion, also beating analysts’ expectations. As if that wasn’t enough, Comcast also announced a $6.9 billion stock buyback and said it would start paying its first dividend in nearly 10 years. The company’s guidance also was strong. Particularly noteworthy was the expected decline of capital expenditures as a percentage of revenue to 18%. Revenue and operating cash flow is expected to grow 8% to 10% with free cash flow jumping 20% to $2.3 billion.

Comcast seems to be listening to the complaints of shareholders who are concerned about the company’s poor stock performance. Whether this will make Chieftain Capital Management, which last month called for the ouster of CEO Brian Roberts, remains to be seen. One quarter is not a trend.

My wife and I are not sure whether we am sticking with the company’s triple play deal that expires at the end of the month or switch to Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ)’s FiOS. I bet I’m not alone. It will be interesting to see if the company’s churn rate starts to increase in the coming months.

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I Don’t Believe in Imaginary Property writes “After the current draft legislation in the UK, which would create a ‘three strikes’ policy to cut off anyone accused of online piracy, the ISPs are asking for liability protection when users are wrongly identified. They’re worried that when users are wrongly blamed for piracy, as has happened in several widely-reported investigations already, they’ll turn around and sue their ISP. The ISPs, of course, think that the record companies — or whoever else wrongly identified the file sharers — should be the ones to pay out any such judgments. The British Phonographic Industry, however, disagrees and wants the ISPs to simply use their Terms of Service to disconnect people. Apparently, that means they think that the ToS should be able to remove any legal recourse people might otherwise have against being misidentified.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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An anonymous reader writes “Comcast’s response to the FCC might have triggered a new avenue of discussion on the subject of Net Neutrality. Rep. Ed Markey (D — Mass.), who chairs the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the World wide web, introduced a bill yesterday whose end result could be the penalization of bandwidth throttling to paying customers. ‘The bill, tentatively entitled the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008, wouldn’t actually declare throttling illegal specifically. Instead, it would call upon the Federal Communications Commission to hold a hearing to determine whether or not throttling is a bad thing, and whether it has the right to take action to stop it.’”

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jcgam69 writes “Hours after a federal court judge ordered Oklahoma State University to show cause why it shouldn’t be held in contempt for failing to respond to an RIAA subpoena, attorneys for the school e-mailed a list of students’ names to the RIAA’s attorneys. But now that the RIAA has what it wanted, the group is unsure about how to go about sending out its pre-litigation settlement letters. Some of the students are represented by an attorney, meaning that the RIAA is barred from contacting them directly.”

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An anonymous reader writes “Microsoft researchers are working out the perfect strategies for worms to spread through networks. Their goal is to distribute software patches and other friendly information via virus, reducing load on servers. This raises the prospect of worm races — deploying a whitehat worm to spread a fix faster than a new attacking worm can reach vulnerable machines.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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