Motorola surprises with small quarterly profit

Motorola reported a small quarterly net profit on Thursday, a day after unveiling a Google-powered smartphone seen as key to turning around the flagging fortunes of the US handset maker.

The Schaumburg, Illinois-based company posted a net profit of 12 million dollars, or one cent per share, in the third quarter compared with a net loss of 397 million dollars in the same period a year ago.

Revenue continued to slide, however, falling 27 percent in the quarter to 5.45 billion dollars.

Motorola's stronger-than-expected earnings came a day after it unveiled a new smartphone with Verizon Wireless called the Droid.

The Droid, which will cost 200 dollars and is being touted as a challenger to Apple's iPhone, is powered by Android 2.0 software, Google's next-generation mobile phone operating system.

The Droid features a new GPS navigation system from Google that includes many of the features of a traditional standalone GPS navigation device such as 3D map views and turn-by-turn voice guidance.

Motorola unveiled another Android-powered smartphone, the Cliq, in September.

Sanjay Jha, Motorola's co-chief executive and chief executive of Mobile Devices, underlined the importance of the devices for the company.

"The introductions of our new products powered by Android are important milestones as we begin to address the mobilization of the Internet and the growing demand for modern smartphones," Jha said. "Next year, we will continue to expand our smartphone portfolio and deliver improved financial results."

Motorola enjoyed success with its popular Razr phone launched in 2005 but has been losing ground since to Apple and Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry, as well as other major cell phone manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.